


Conventional Killjoys

by Flick (raynon)



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Gen, Selective mute Kobra, Trans Kobra, their killjoy names are their real names, will update tags when new chapters are posted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25715530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raynon/pseuds/Flick
Summary: Backstories of the Killjoys based on the Conventional Weapons compilation. Each KJ has two songs that fit in their narrative.
Relationships: Fun Ghoul & Dr. Death Defying, Jet Star/Mad Gear (Danger Days), Kobra Kid & Party Poison (Danger Days), Kobra Kid & Show Pony
Comments: 15
Kudos: 25





	1. Kiss The Ring / World Is Ugly

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhh hey! i've been ruminating on this idea for like 4 months, and i'm working on them one at a time. so i'll try to get them out as quickly as i can. just thought this was a pretty nifty concept, also cw is my favorite "album". if you got any questions, i'm more than happy to elaborate.

The Prodigy was eight years old when he was first pulled out of his classes. The other children were all confused as they watched BLi representatives call his name and escort him out of the room. He’d always been quiet and polite, was usually the one with best grades, and only the  _ emotional _ children got pulled out to be corrected. So why was he being taken away from everyone else?

He stood with a strange grace and acceptance, gathered the things on his desk, then placed them back down when he was told he wasn’t going to need his school books anymore. His classmates watched in awe as he just nodded and followed them out the door. Still, his heart was racing as he kept his head held upright. He didn’t ask any questions, didn’t try to run, despite all other instincts telling him otherwise. They let him ride in a fancy car to BLi headquarters, and it did give him some relief to see these doors instead of the correctional facility.

Then again, being able to stand in front of the infamous S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/Ws and The Director himself was something else altogether that he really couldn’t pinpoint; a man taller than he’d ever seen before with stark white hair pulled back into a ponytail. Not a strand out of place. Eyes like stone. He was surprised he was able to stand so still in front of them, but he had a feeling they were picking him apart bit by bit with their eyes.

“Do you know why you’re here?” The Director asked. “You may answer the question.”

“No,” he responded as clearly as he could. He felt pulled into his stare, hoping he wasn’t being disrespectful by not keeping his head bowed.

“Your exceptional marks in school, grades and behavior, have caught our attention. We’re going to enroll you in our training program to become Better Living’s most elite leaders,” he told him, not a twitch of emotion anywhere on his expression.

His eyes widened, though he tried not to gawp. Blinking, he subconsciously let out a tiny squeak.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I just...wanted to say, thank you,” he said shakily, and nodded his head once.

Two of the three S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/Ws looked to each other and smirked.

“Very good. Flare will be showing you to your new dormitory, and you’ll get your new dossier within the week where we’ll start you off with evaluations. On behalf of Better Living, welcome aboard to our program.” The Director turned sharply on his heel and left without another word.

His very first dormitory was shared by five other recruits, varying from ages eight to twelve. The other two his age have a faint air of fear, unlike him, and nobody said a word to anyone else. They weren’t enlisted in this program to become friends, after all, they were here to become important assets to their community.

The evaluations were a process of people in white coats asking the Prodigy a bunch of questions, very few he didn’t understand just yet. Questions such as, “What does Better Living mean to you?” and “How does being here make you feel?” He wasn’t reprimanded for not being able to answer them, surprisingly. They’d said he was the one to answer his questions clearest out of every new recruit, and showed the least amount of emotion.

In BLi’s eyes, he was perfect.

For his initiation, they dyed his hair white to strip him of the remaining color that clung to him.   
  


His teachers and supervisors weren’t surprised to see his scores soar above the rest of the other trainees. The child was observant beyond measure, absorbing information and understanding almost everything like an empty syringe. There were still very few things he had trouble grasping, though, things he never told anyone about.

Families existed in the city. They had to, or else the population would thin out and die. Even some of the recruits had families. Parents. Siblings. Even some of the children from the developmental center he was apparently born in knew where their parents were. He wondered, then, why nobody had ever taken the effort to find out where his own family was.

He only refused to ask because he was afraid they would tell him that he didn’t need family. Attachments would only slow him down, or some other reason that sounded just as frightening.

  
  
  
  


The Prodigy was twelve years old when he learned more about the headquarters. Now that he had taken his four years of verbal and textbook training, it was time to move onto building strength and learning was it truly meant to be an Exterminator. They taught him about the Draculoids first, and how they didn’t need to be shown respect. Draculoids, essential to the cause as they may be, were defective citizens who refused to take their pills. All that pent-up energy and emotion wasn’t good for the brain, they said, so it was better for BLi to help them direct all that into protecting the good people.

The Prodigy couldn’t help but stare at every Drac that passed him by. Something wrong bubbled in his stomach, but it wasn’t anything out of fear or disgust for them. Maybe the Dracs really couldn’t control how they felt. Maybe the pills just didn’t work for them, because he understood what it was like to feel. He was just better than anyone else at hiding it. In fact, he was the best. He just wished it didn’t hurt so much.

This was also around the time that word spread of a new terrorist radio host on the BLi Watchlist. Rumors in the headquarters went around about an east coast doctor moving closer to the danger, to give motivation for all the criminals in the desert to thwart the good, protective city BLi had given its heart to build.

And yet, the Prodigy couldn’t help but let his interest be pulled. He swallowed excitement every time he was invited along with his mentor for radio surveillance, to listen to this doctor’s broadcast. There was untapped elegance in the strange dialect he used, his tonal shifts made the boy’s nerves spark in the way he knew he was not supposed to react with. At night, after curfew, he’d wear his headphones and listen to the villainous doctor wax poetic and wish he’d say nice things about Battery City instead.

One of the other recruits had caught him listening to one of the broadcasts overnight. This was his first offense since joining the ranks, and was sent to the infirmary come the next morning. They asked him questions that were easy to answer, easy to lie about. “Why did you listen to an illegal program?”

“Because I want to get as much information as I can about the enemy,” he’d answer.

“How does the terrorist make you feel?”

“I feel nothing. I only want to observe,” he’d answer.

Nevertheless, they switched his medication dosage from pills to injections.

The Prodigy was fourteen years old when he was assigned his first observation. He was allowed to accompany his mentor on dismantling a raid out in Zone 2. Not through the monitor room, but actually being out in the real action. He was quickly chided afterward for smiling in excitement, being told to remain professional. S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/Ws never smiled. A note was put on his file for later observation.

His mentor, Korse, took it upon himself to help pick out what to wear before the raid. “It does well for S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/Ws to maintain a precise amount of decorum. We want to be perceived as above the Draculoids, but not as flashy as the sand rats.”

The Prodigy was staring at Korse’s ruffled shirt. He vaguely understood, and was overall relieved that he didn’t have to put on a Drac suit. Those always seemed too tight and too...stainable.

The hook of a hanger dangled off Korse’s fingertips, covered by a floor-length zip bag. “I’ve picked this out for you. I think it would suit you well.”

He removed the bag to look over the suit inside. It was nothing like Korse’s suit of choice, but it still stood out, somehow. Black slacks, white button-up, those he weren’t a stranger to, but Korse had gone out of his way to have a jacket custom made for him. Gunmetal grey canvas with BLi’s logo sewn on over the heart. Dog tags also hung off a chain, and the Prodigy ran his fingers over the cool metal.

“Go on. Get dressed quickly, we’re leaving in twenty,” Korse reminded him.

“Thank you.” The Prodigy bowed his head and left the room.

Nothing could have prepared him for how bright the desert sun actually was. Not any amount of pills, or the UV sunglasses, or even the sun shield in Korse’s car. “It’s alright, your eyes will adjust. Let them,” Korse assured him flatly as he drove on. The Prodigy trusted him, though it ached for minutes that just dragged on, but it did eventually work. He could see the desert for all its wild, untameable wonder.

No, perhaps not wonder. He couldn’t really find a BLi-approved word to describe it.

By the time they made it around the destination, an abandoned strip mall that had nearly been robbed down to its foundations, Korse drove ahead to flank the zonerunners while the Drac van behind them stopped to cut off their escape. The Prodigy braced himself while he tried to get as good of a look as he could at these criminals. He’d seen wanted poster after wanted poster after wanted poster, but to see them in action, that made his heart flip. He just wasn’t sure if it was out of eagerness or anxiety.

“Stay here,” Korse told him, shaking him out of his half-daze. “You’re on observation.”

He almost wanted to protest, but that would mean a bad mark on his report later. “You don’t need help?”

“If we apprehend any of the criminals, I will call for you.” Korse grabbed his gun and stepped out into the heat-- oh, the heat was  _ intense. _

The only good thing about being left alone like this was that he had a few blessed moments that he didn’t have to shove his emotions down; doing that, plus all this new desert exposure was starting to force a migraine in the base of his skull. Leaning forward, he got as close to the windshield as he could as he watched laser beams fire in frantic directions.

He didn’t react when more Dracs were being killed than the criminals, though he got a strange, uncomfortable sense of satisfaction when he saw a zonerunner drop, and then another. Korse’s aim was precise and swift, making the Prodigy grin. That’s who he wanted to be. It made him wonder if Korse was going to turn around and surprise the young one creeping up behind him.

Second after second ticked by, and Korse still didn’t turn around. The Prodigy wasn’t armed, but alarm was tensing up the muscles in his shoulders. Korse wasn’t going to turn around. The youngest runner raised his blaster,  _ and he still wasn’t turning around. _

He opened the car door and bolted out against all hesitation screaming at him to stick to the plan, but Korse’s life was in danger. He leaped forward and tackled the apprehender onto the cracked black pavement, flipping him onto their back. Grabbing their gun, he wrestled it from their grasp and pointed the barrel directly against his forehead.

And he froze up.

It wasn’t the fact that he was afraid to kill. No, S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/Ws never feared taking the lives of criminals. What kept his trigger finger from pulling was their eyes. Wide, wild, and hazel. Like his own. His gaze followed down the bridge of their familiar looking nose, and so, too, did the blaster before poking at the pointed chin. It wasn’t like looking in a mirror, but there were enough similarities to make him dizzy with confusion. And from the looks of it, the perpetrator may have felt the same, only they looked... _ relieved. _

His vision went black for an indeterminate amount of time, but when he came to again, the side of his head felt as if it had burst open. Someone was gently putting beats of pressure against it, and his first instinct was to swat it away. Grimacing, he sat up and realized he was sitting in the Draculoid van.

“Good, you’re awake again. Do you remember what happened?” Korse asked, turning his head to get a better look at the bleeding wound around his ear.

“Was I shot?” he asked, still groggy.

“No, you narrowly avoid bursting into flame,” Korse answered. When the Prodigy’s sense of smell kicked back in, there was a sickening wave of gasoline that flooded his nose. “A molotov was thrown at you, but the flame extinguished before the bottle shattered against the side of your head.”

He swallowed hard.

“Did you get a good look at the runner you nearly captured?” Korse eyed him down.

“Yes. I’ll be sure to make a clear detail in my report,” he answered with, and combed his oily hair back. The fact that four Dracs were all staring at him at the same time made him wish he could just pass out again. “I...I’m sorry for getting out of the car, Korse.”

“Sometimes, in order to aid your teammates, you need to do what’s right. This offense is excusable,” Korse said quietly with a nod. “Now, if you can walk, get back in the car and let’s return.”

After touching base with the Director and he was given permission to return to his dormitory, he stood in the shower for 45 minutes, most of the time just spent staring at the white tiles. He had blood out there. For all of his life, he’d had nobody to connect to, nobody that shared the same heartbeat or chemicals or senses when there had been someone outside the city the whole time.

The flood of emotion that followed overwhelmed him to the point where his ears rang louder and louder like shell shock, and he clapped his hands over them. The edges of his visions blurred and his pulse raced, and all he could do was try to breathe through it. But how could he, when there was relief and terror battering his thoughts? What if he was never going to see them again? What if BLi found them?

He knelt down against the slippery floor and pressed his forehead down against his thighs, trying his hardest not to drown in the position. The hot water against his back still helped, and when he started to regain normality in his senses, he finally turned off the shower and stayed in the tub, wrapping a towel around his shoulders.

The Prodigy wasn’t assigned another mission for six months after his mishap, and when he was given the clear to join the field again, he was not as excited as he was the first time. It was easier to swallow down the vibrations in his nerves. Even when he was finally given a blaster of his own. The weapon only felt heavier in his hands than he expected, but he felt the weight more in his gut than his hands.

This mission was easier than the first. It was only on the borders of Battery City, among the ruins not yet commissioned for restoration. He finally took his first kill here,  _ kills, _ and received a nod of approval from Korse. He’d re-gained any trust that may have wavered from the Director, and things seemed to be back on track.

That was, until he noticed an envelope on the floor of his apartment, right under his window. He never opened his window, but there it was, with a few centimeters of space open.

The envelope itself had smudges all over it, and at first, they seemed grey, but when he focused hard enough, he could see  _ purple _ and  _ green _ and  _ red _ . His medication made it more difficult to see such vibrant, illegal colors these days, but the more he smiled, the more he could see.

He quickly tore it open to read the folded paper inside, his hands shaking.

_ I know I’m risking my life by attempting to get this in your hands, but I think we both know it’s worth it. _

_ Your mother never meant to leave you to the cold hands of the orphanage. She tried to get you back, but considering she was a terrorist in the eyes of Bat City, there was no hope. So I took it on myself when she died to find you. I could see it when you looked at me; you don’t belong with them. You’re clinging to what your heart is trying to tell you against the silence of your pills, so that’s why I won’t stop trying to pull you away. _

_ Keep running. _

_ KK _

  
  


The Prodigy was eighteen by the time he started weaning himself off his medications. In order to avoid the visual signs of withdrawal, he didn’t cut himself off cold turkey. Every month, he’d lessen the dose by milligrams until the shivers and the nausea were enough to bear. The hardest thing, he found, but was not surprised by, maintaining the act. He’d always been so good at it before, but he was barely getting by these days.

The worst thing was the oversensitivity. Because the medications had quite literally made him colorblind, it forced him to re-adjust to his own sight, and he would have to con his way through medical checkups, hoping against all odds that the doctors couldn’t see through his symptoms. He was starting to form a small file with the Director, small slips in his demeanor, enough to keep a sharper eye on the top student. Every time he was allowed to have a moment by himself, he’d spend it letting his face twist in anguish until the worst of the waves passed. Some days were better than others, but it was never a linear progression.

The second worst thing that he’d soon find was there was a specific word for this growing storm inside him. Empathy. Every fresh body he’d lay in the sand, he swallowed down his sorrow and guilt until he was allowed to rest for the night, and stare out his window, eyes wet, until either exhaustion took him or he was called back into action.

Even Korse, the man-- the  _ machine _ he wanted to be, it started to hurt to look him in the eye. Korse was highly regarded by everyone in the corporation for doing such a good job training what was going to be BLi’s best S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W in history. At least it was easy not to smile. It was easier to feel dead inside, just like they wanted. But he knew better now, knew it  _ could _ be better.

And it was all thanks to KK. Never again did he see them on missions, thank goodness, but he’d gotten better at skirting around protocols. At first, all they could do to contact each other was leave notes in rendez-vous points, until they exchanged radio channels, and he actually got to hear their voice. The guilt of his job didn’t lessen any, knowing that KK, Kobra Kid, would always disapprove, but it was at least nice to know that he could be open to someone about the ache. How much he wanted to stop, maybe leave everything behind and run away with his sibling.

Sibling. After four years, that word was still difficult to grasp. He'd be damned if he didn't grip onto it for his life, though.

The Prodigy would venture out into the city on his own on his days off. His favorite place to go was the library, because there was always someone waiting for him in the city law section. The two never faced each other, knowing that cameras were always watching, but they would whisper short conversations and exchange secrets.

He’d gone on a rainy day one weekend afternoon, two hours before the library was set to close. The heaviness of the air was not doing well for his head and the loudness of the rain was like static, and he was aching to talk to Kobra.

Kobra was dressed down in a grey palette, and their hair was flattened down to one side. That’s how they always hid in the City. “You don’t sound too good,” they whispered after hearing the dragging footsteps of their brother.

“Can...can we go somewhere else?” He was hardly able to choke a sound out. “It’s bad today. Even standing is a chore.”

Kobra pulled off a book from the shelf and started to flip through it. “Got any place we could go?”

“I’ll radio you coordinates,” he decided, slipping his earpiece in. He unzipped his jacket and turned to approach the desk, pulling a book out that he was protecting from the rain so he could return it. Without another word, he left the building and pressed two fingers to his ear, muttering directions to Kobra.

The spot in question was a closed-off underground tunnel that BLi had shut down. It used to be a hideout for killjoys some years ago, and though he hated noticing the bloodstains still marking the walls, he knew nobody would ever come down here. Kobra showed up fifteen minutes later, and this time, they weren’t afraid to get close to him.

For the first time in his life, he allowed himself to tumble into Kobra’s arms, into  _ anyone’s _ arms at all, and just clutched them. He crumbled, muscles giving out against Kobra’s body, thankful that they could still hold him upright.

“You need to get outta there, Tiger. It’s killin’ you,” Kobra murmured, as if it weren’t obvious.

“I’ve only got two months left until I’m officially in...” He sighed until there was no more breath in his lungs, and held still until the dizziness ebbed the pain away. “I’m so tired, though. I’m tired of this ugly fuckin’ city. It’s...it’s so dismal, compared to your world. So lifeless.”

Kobra lowered him to sit down, and they both leaned against the cold brick wall. “There’s still time to leave, time to break free.”

He tilted his head upward, now forcing himself to notice the bloodstains. “It would be cowardly for me to just pack my things and run. You know...when I first started, there were at least twelve of us. We’re only down to two now. Either others were killed in the field, or reassigned as Dracs. Probably dead anyway.” He ran his tongue over his teeth. “I want to, Kid. I really do. But I also have power right now. Power that I can use--”

Kobra’s eyes widened, swallowing. “You’re...not actually considering going full Exterminator, are you?”

He shook his head. “I can see both sides now, and I can see BLi for what they really are. If I turn, they’re gonna make my brain mechanic, and I’ll lose everything I’ve learned. Everything you’ve shown me. I-- I’m gonna lose color. I’m gonna lose choice. Everything. But the power that I have, I still have time to turn it on them.”

“How so?” Kobra wiped some sweat from their brother’s temple.

“Are you kidding? I can go anywhere inside the headquarters, just about. The Director trusts me, well-- he trusts me enough. Korse thinks I’m wrapped around his finger...I could...I want to...”

“Poison the party,” they thought aloud, smirking.

He met their eyes, brow knotted, and hummed. “Poison the party.”

A long silence followed, but it was comfortable. It was only broken by the distant echoes of dripping, trickles of tiny streams through the tunnels. He could have dozed off if he didn’t know any better, and he was sure Kobra might have let him.

“Hey,” he finally spoke up, half-making sure he still had the strength to speak. “I left a surprise for you. I get worried about you out there, even though we never cross paths. But I know I’m not the only threat out there.”

“You got me a present?” Kobra nudged his ribs gently. “That’s sweet. Where is it?”

He grabbed their hand just for the skin contact. There was no telling when the next time he would get such relief. “Northwest sector, there’s a small park. Between the boulder and the dock at the pond, there’s a metal box. Be safe finding it.”

“Are you leaving already?” Kobra’s smile vanished. “C’mon, we just got here.”

“You’ve already made me feel a lot better. Just...promise me you’ll wait for me in the Zones, yeah? You’ll take me away?”

“Whatever you say. I’ve got a pretty sweet hookup right now, and they’d love to add one more to the crew,” Kobra squeezed his hand before they both loosened their fingers.

He pushed himself to stand once more. “You’re my family. You’re the most important thing to me now.” Pulling the chain off from around his neck, he handed over his dog tags.

They took the chain and held it close to their chest. He remained sitting as he walked off, leaving time for themself to question the future.

  
  
  


One week remained until graduation, and he hadn’t had time to see his sibling since. Korse had called him down to Corrections, to the holding cells where interrogations were held. He kept a cool head when the file was presented to him: a killjoy by the codename Show Pony was being apprehended after they and codename Kobra Kid attempted to rob a BLi facility in the actual city. At this point, the act was borderline laughable, but his lips remained in a flat line.

Stepping into the cell, Show Pony smiled and straightened their posture. They were tied down to a chair, arms and legs restrained. “So  _ you’re _ the ever-so-famous baby ‘crow. Look at you, you’re like a magpie!”

“You’re going to tell us the whereabouts of your partner--” Korse started.

“Oh, honey, I like the Kid, but we’re not together like that.” Show Pony flipped their hair off their forehead. “We’re just besties.”

“What reason did you attempt to raid BLi property?” the Prodigy asked, trying to keep the subject off Kobra.

“What reason do any of us try to raid the shit you hoard? This time, I think we decided to do it just outta spite. Or maybe just to catch your attention.” Pony winked. “Especially you, Magpie.”

He crossed his arms, then glanced to Korse. “Let me take a crack at this,” he spoke up, unsure if it would actually work or not. But when Korse nodded and cleared the room, he bit back surprise. Shit, Korse trusted him too much. Good.

“So. Did you really get yourself caught on purpose?” he started off with.

“Wouldn’t  _ you _ like to know, pretty boy!” Pony crooned. The two stared at each other, but they didn’t know each other well enough to speak in silence. Still, he could only assume this was Kobra’s confidant. Surely they had to know. Surely he could trust him just enough. “Like what ya see?”

He blinked, and scowled. A camera in the top left corner was aimed at his face. “Before Dracs captured you, you were found with four cases of stolen suppressants. Not only can you be charged for armed theft, but if the courts rule in our favor, which they would, they’d add illegal distribution onto your case.”

“Ooh, spicy. Gonna lock me up real tight?”

“We can lessen the charges to a misdemeanor, considering we’ve confiscated your supply. In exchange, all you need to do is give up the location of Kobra Kid.”

“And miss out on all the fun you’ve got planned for me? I don’t possibly think I could resist.” They fluttered their eyelashes. “Listen, Magpie, you could keep me here until the cock crows, but that kid is pretty darn elusive. They manage to slip right through my fingers all the time! Who knows where they end up?”

His nostrils flared. They definitely know. “No? You couldn’t have the slightest idea? That doesn’t seem very bestie-like.”

“It’s a tough world, honey.” They slouched against the cold metal chair. “Can’t even trust your own blood sometimes.”

He really didn’t want to hurt them, but he turned and left the room. “Get the sodium penthotal,” he ordered a Drac guarding the hall, and he hung in the doorway to watch Pony.

“Let’s stop talkin’ about me for a moment. I wanna know more about you.”

_ Shut up. Shut the fuck up, don’t say anything to get us killed. _

“What’s your favorite color?”

His eyelids fluttered, unable to process the question for a second. “I don’t have one,” he spat out, nausea bubbling inside him.

“Aw, no? But everyone does! Although, I do hear word that them fancy pills you get make colors go away, is that right? Sheesh, talk about overkill. Maybe that’s why this place makes my eyes hurt so bad. Okay, okay...what else can I ask you?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” He glared at them.

Pony absolutely crooned.

By the time his order came back, a full syringe prepared and ready to go, the alarms went off. Korse stormed out from around a corner. “Everybody in position, we’ve got Killjoys!”

“Oh, you want me to tell you where Kobra is now?” Pony called out.

In all, the crew consisted of six, and opened fire immediately. Kobra hung left and took charge of finding Pony while the others held the Dracs and Korse off.   
  
The Prodigy remained by Pony’s room, though it didn’t take long for Kobra to appear. Both of them drew their blasters on each other, but Kobra moved his target at the last second and took out the camera above their brother.

“Make it convincing,” he told him, widening his stance as Kobra took a running start, leaping forward. They were brandishing a Power Glove, which he hadn’t expected, and he’d learned in that moment that being choked out by one was very unpleasant. It was what he asked for, though, but the ten volts that surged through his neck definitely kept him down for a good minute.

Long enough, at least, to free Pony, and for two Dracs to run close for backup. By the time the Prodigy was back on his feet, both he and Kobra took them out together. He let Kobra and Pony make it all the way down the hall. “Hey!” he shouted before they disappeared completely.

Kobra turned.

“Sorry,” he said with a shrug before shooting Kobra square in the chest.

They fell back into Pony’s hold, and had to be dragged the rest of the way. He took notice that Pony’s feet were bare before leaning hard against the wall, waiting for Korse to come collect him and take him away for medical care.

  
  
  


S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W initiations were no real big events. Battery City didn’t see the point in holding many celebrations if emotions were so overcumbersome. The ceremony room was small, but there were still cameras televising the event for the news later that night. The people deserved to know who were to be their newest protectors, after all.

Korse stood by his perfect protégé as the Director approached them both. For a moment, it seemed the old man tried to smile. “You’ve shown unwavering loyalty and honor to the people of Battery City. From here on out, we are proud to have you as a member of our party.” He extended a hand to shake.

The Prodigy took the hand, but gripped it without shaking. “Proud, huh? That sounds a little too emotional for our good city, doesn’t it?” With his free hand, his blaster was drawn, pushed under the Director’s chin, and he fired.

The Director fell backward with the life gone from his eyes.

Everyone drew on him as he backed up toward the door. “Next time, you might wanna look a little harder for the poison in your party,” he said, smirking, and dove out of the way of the fire. He raced as quick as his legs could take him out of the ceremony hall, taking a hit in the arm and one grazing his ear, and he shoved his body against the door, rolling outside to where a decommissioned exterminator-grade Trans AM waited for him.

“The fuck you waiting for, Poison?” Kobra reached out to take his hand. “Let’s blow this joint! There's a special Doctor who's been dyin' to meet you.”

Party Poison grinned and reached for his sibling’s hand, scrambling into the back seat. He bellowed out against the racing wind, out to the desert.


	2. Gun. / Make Room!!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's gonna answer a few questions from the last one, i'd left things vague for a reason so we can see them through kobra's perspective :0 also there's a quick mention of killing an animal close to the beginning, just as a warning.

The Changeling was born in the back of a broken-down pickup truck out in Zone 5. They were an early birth; their mother always liked to tease that they were too eager to get out in the world. When they demanded the desert’s attention, they took it in their fat, tiny hands, and when they didn’t, there was always their mother to shield them when it all got to be too much.

They grew up around a surprising amount of sand pups, because the truth was, it was hard raising kids in a fucked up timeline like this. Mama always felt so bad for every tiny soul abandoned that she would offer them food and a shoulder to cry on. The Changeling usually never minded, despite never finding the willpower to speak to those souls that came and went. Even still, they saw them all as siblings, in one way or another.

There was only one sibling that stuck around permanently: Show Pony. Harbinger of chaos on rollerskates. The Changeling was only five when they first met, Pony being ten, but they were instantly inseparable. Pony tried to teach them how to skate, but they ended up not being very good at it. Pony helped them realize that pronouns were a very weird and confusing thing. Pony brought out their bravery to the point where they finally said their first word at seven years old.

“Cobra,” they’d said, holding a spoil of hunting in their hands. It was a dead rattlesnake, one they’d killed themself.

Mama and Pony panicked and quickly checked them over for any bites, but found them to be blessedly unharmed. The three all had a good laugh of relief about it afterward, and a hearty lunch. Mama kept the spine and fashioned it into a necklace for her Kobra Kid.

  
  
  


Kobra knew from a relatively young age, they can’t quite remember, but they knew they weren’t an only child. And not in the sense that Mama took in strays to guard them from the Phoenix Witch’s cold claws, but there was another child out there with Mama’s eyes. Kobra knew the poor child was somewhere in Battery City, separated while Mama was held captive under BLi.

They could tell when she missed that child, there was an unshakeable longing in her eyes when she stared at the far-off glow of the city.

  
  
  


One of the unfortunate things of being a sand pup, is that one is usually exposed to claps when they’re too young. Dracs are always looking for kills, no matter the age. Mama went down more valiantly than any zonerunner in history, that’s what Kobra would always remember, and that day, their first laser blast burned through the brain of the Drac that killed her.

It didn’t feel good, necessarily, but it felt right.

Show Pony and the four other children under Mama’s wing all slept in a pile together next to the mailbox, grasping for the warmth of her spirit for one more night.

At that point, Kobra was decent at making it on his own. It wasn’t often that they were left to their own devices, especially with Pony’s refusal to be too far away, but Kobra still couldn’t separate themself from trying to care for those younger than them. That was the hardest part, though, trying to find enough shelter for the smaller bodies.

Kobra struck up a deal with Tommy Chow Mein, and they called it a deal over a job, because there was no actual pay involved. In exchange for having a safe place to crash for any young and lost soul, they would advertise sales and general promotions. It didn’t stop Kobra from seeking out new places forever, but it was a great collateral. Especially when scouting missions ended up going Costa Rica.

Most runners knew that BLi didn’t usually raid the desert at night. It was harder to see under a dark sky, yes, but any sane person would rather take looking a little harder over the constant threat of death on the back of their neck. There was one time where Kobra, Pony, and four other killjoys found themselves lucky. It was one of the biggest places they’d seen in a while. Granted, it needed a lot of work, and it was practically a skeleton. But there was a roof, and plenty of room. There was potential. Pony and Kobra smiled at each other, bumping fists. Carefully avoiding broken glass, they started to inspect the place and made sure that it wouldn’t collapse, or there wasn’t a gas leak, although some of the others that tagged along had already seemed to fall in love with the place regardless.

The problem wasn’t in the structure or the wires or the pipes. It was that it was too easily targeted. When morning came around, Dracs had filled the parking lot. They’d even brought a fuckin’ exterminator-- no,  _ two _ . Why the hell were  _ two _ of them here?

Kobra couldn’t help but clutch at Pony’s sleeve at first, needing a second to ground themself before grabbing a gun.

“Keep a sharp eye, Kiddo. I’ll watch your six,” Pony murmured, and leaped forward into the fray.

Logistically, claps usually never last very long. They only seemed to stretch on for what felt like days because Kobra was always absorbing so much while trying to dodge blasts at the same time that it made their head spin. Two Dracs with eyes on them-- one northwest and one south-southeast. One Drac with eyes on Party-- shot by another runner. The exterminator. The exterminator had already downed two of their crew, and if he set his sights on Pony, Kobra was going to lose it.

While he was distracted, they ducked down and slipped out of sight. Kobra  _ had _ to get the exterminator in order to win, and they grinned when they were able to sneak up behind him. A perfect line-up. Breathing in deeply, Kobra raised the blaster, took aim, made sure Pony was still okay--

And then they were knocked off their feet. Something hard and heavy forced the breath from their ribs, and their conscience only went fuzzy for a second before they remembered to struggle for the gun. There was someone rolling around with them on the hot pavement,  _ shit, it burned, _ and the pain distracted them long enough to get pinned.

_ Fuck. Fucking fuck, I’m sorry, Pony, forgive-- _

Kobra stared at the second exterminator, who stared at them right back with a look they  _ knew _ exterminators weren’t supposed to make. Not only that, but those weren’t just any eyes. Those were Mama’s eyes. Kobra was starting to see double, or maybe the Witch let them see his aura long enough to know that this--  **holy shit he’s a fucking exterminator!** \--poor, misguided soul was special. Needed saving.

Nevermind that the blaster was still being dragged down their face, but Kobra had a feeling they weren’t gonna shoot. If only he could find the words, if only time could stop here and they could ask, how the fuck did he get here, but the crash of explosing glass kicked them hard out of their thoughts. Despite their best efforts, they still got a bat cut along their eyebrow, but the poor soul above them was knocked out.

“Kid!” Pony shouted. “Let’s high-tail it!”

Kobra rolled away, hissing as they cradled the back of their burnt head, grabbed their blaster again, and raced for the getaway truck.

Pony knew something went down. Well, of course they did, they threw the bottle. As they wiped the gasoline that was inside the bottle off Kobra’s face, they looked them dead in the eye. Pony didn’t get worried often; it was bad for the complexion. But. “What did you see?”

Kobra’s throat seized up. They hadn’t spoken a word for a day and a half now, but Pony needed to know. They needed to understand. “BLi has Mama’s kid.”

“Oh, honey...” Pony licked the pad of their thumb to wipe blood off Kobra’s eyebrow. “You sure? It wasn’t the UVs gettin’ in your eyes?”

“We saw each other.” Kobra’s eyes burned something fierce; the gasoline didn’t help, nor did the wind whipping by the truck, but they could feel the sting of longing worst of all. “He-- they, fuck, I don’t know. But the fucker knew. And I could see. They don’t belong there, Show.”

“Kobra.” Pony could see the look in their eye. There was already a plan going through that brilliant, wild mind. “Don’t get yourself killed for this, okay? You’re all I got left right now.”

Kobra leaned forward to press their face into Pony’s chest. “Not for long,” he muttered, sighing. “Soon, you’re gonna have two people.”

  
  
  
  


For a week after, Kobra sat and mulled and ruminated over how they were even going to contact them again. Running headfirst into raids was an absolute no-go, so the only real option was to visit the city. Speaking was hard to do for Kobra half the time, on top of the difficulty of getting past BLi in any capacity. The best way to do this was probably through writing. Even still, Kobra was half-scared of writing something wrong and having to start all over again; all they had was a pen and everything was a commodity out here. Even paper.

Kobra decided that they weren’t quite ready to write the letter yet. Instead of wasting more time, they did a long session of tai chi to recalibrate their mind, shucked off their bright colors and glitter in favor of a grey t-shirt and brown jacket. They were going to the City.

Pony was mortified for them, but they could pass as a citizen if they were careful enough. “I swear on all the forces in the world. If I hear your name on D’s broadcast, I will find your spirit and kick all the plasma out of you.”

Kobra smiled and hugged them tight. “I’ll be back on the regs. Every other day. Just keep me posted if you move hideouts.”

“I love you, crazy.” Pony clutched to Kobra’s back.

“Love you, too.” Kobra nuzzled their cheek before pulling away. “I’ll see you in two days. That’s a promise.”

  
  
  


Kobra hitchhiked for a day in order to get all the way to Battery City’s borders. They really weren’t even borders, they were just tunnels that people could really easily pass through. Since they weren’t any sort of droid, there was no real problem passing through the tunnel. Still, being in the City gave Kobra the worst case of the shivers, and it wasn’t just because of the controlled climate.

Witch, this place was  _ dismal _ . Their brother needed to get the fuck outta here.

At least Kobra didn’t get bored. Since they never bothered to visit the City before, there was a lot of mental mapping to be done. Keeping an eye out for BLi agents, they took their time roaming the streets, the Droid district would probably be a good place to hide if they needed. As much as they wanted to get closer to the headquarters, every time a shining white building was even in their peripherals, their skin went cold.

Kobra was sure not to overstay their welcome. They did their best to follow their brother from a safe distance for about a day and a half, scouting out any places that they went that wasn’t in headquarters, and also tried to get a feel of times when it was safe to be so close without being noticed.

Their intention wasn’t to get noticed just yet, not the first time. They knew it was going to take a few weeks to even build up courage, but also to memorize schedules from the limited information they obtained. In between city trips, they’d leave the hideout less and less. Once they realized that being potentially ambushed could involve a higher risk of seeing him again, the thought of having to point a gun at him again, they just wouldn’t have that. It was best to put more focus on the mission and be around in the aftermath to help patch other runners up when they could.

Months passed before Kobra finally figured out where their brother’s bedroom was. Their heart was pounding, though it was mostly out of fear. Fuck, they were so close to the Dracs, the exterminators, and rage simmered at the thought of someone of their own family being cooped up inside there.

Upon careful observation, they found that their room was almost under the ground floor, with one window for ventilation. Or fire regulations. They didn’t care much, but there was a way to contact him. Kobra didn’t stay to watch him through the window; that was crossing a line, but they did catch flashes of his stark white hair darting back and forth a few times. They knew where they slept at night. They knew what to write to him now.

Kobra didn’t write the letter in Battery City, though. They thought better in a place they were comfortable with, and being this close to the enemy was a hair-s away from tearing his mind apart. At least they had good news to bring home to Pony as well, and that thought put a bounce in his step as he made his way back toward the tunnels.

_ I know I’m risking my life by attempting to get this in your hands, but I think we both know it’s worth it. _

_ Your mother never meant to leave you to the cold hands of the orphanage. She tried to get you back, but considering she was a terrorist in the eyes of Bat City, there was no hope. So I took it on myself when she died to find you. I could see it when you looked at me; you don’t belong with them. You’re clinging to what your heart is trying to tell you against the silence of your pills, so that’s why I won’t stop trying to pull you away. _

_ Keep running. _

_ KK _

The letter, neatly tucked in an envelope, was slipped right under the crack of his window in the dead of night. Kobra wasn’t sure what they were expecting, but they’d checked back every day for three days until there was something white sticking back out of the window. A response! Snatching it before they were spotted, they took the letter and ran to a nearby alley and tore it open.

**KK,**

**Thank you for finding me. Yes, what you’re doing is dangerous, but border patrols here are always at 0800 and 1400. Manage to avoid them safely, and I will eagerly await your response.**

  
  
  


From them on, only another handful of letters were sent before he suggested they try radio instead. He knew how to make a secure line that BLi couldn’t trace. Kobra loathed the idea at first, but...it was a lot better than creeping around the enemy. There was no better choice.

Kobra felt sick during the first scheduled time, but it was the kind of sick they knew they could control if they would just calm the fuck down. They nearly wore a hole in the floor from pacing, unable to tear their gaze from the radio standing upright on the table. Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe he wouldn’t call in at all, maybe, maybe, maybe--

_ “...Hello?” _

They froze.

_ “This is, um, this is a secure line, reaching out to KK. D-do you copy?” _

Kobra just stared for a few seconds before practically swan diving to the receiver. “This is KK here,” he responded, his voice quiet and wavering. “Read you loud and clear. Over.” Their face was already starting to ache from grinning.

_ “Oh, I’m so relieved this works.” _

“Hey, relief is good. I’m glad you’re safe enough right now to say that.” They sat down on the floor before they fell over from overexcitement.

_ “Yeah. Yeah, I--”  _ Kobra waited until the sentence was finished, holding their breath.  _ “I think that’s the first time I actually admitted to feeling something in five years.” _

Kobra’s grin lessened, and the silence stretched on for a few seconds too long. “Hey. I won’t snitch on you, so you can tell me all your feelings. Whenever you want.” It was so strange to get so giddy about hearing someone laugh, almost like a parent feeling the overwhelming joy of hearing their child say a first word.

_ “So, can I ask what KK stands for?” _

“Oh. Kobra Kid.”

_ “But, Cobra starts with a ‘C’--” _

Kobra pressed the receiver to his chest and laughed. “Yeah, nobody gives a shit about spelling out here. At least when it comes to names. Think of it as just an added topping of rebellion against the prim and perfect society there.”

_ “Interesting. So you chose your own name?” _

“Uh, I guess. It was kinda a mutual thing between me n’ Mom.”

_ “That sounds nice...” _ His voice softened, but before Kobra could respond, they were cut off.  _ “Supervisors are making their rounds. I have to go for now. Same time tomorrow?” _

“Yeah.” Kobra blinked, feeling his face drop. “Signing off.”

_ “Over and out.” _

The radio conversations didn’t happen every night after that, they really only got to talking at least once a week. Even then, sometimes it ended up being him doing most of the talking when Kobra couldn’t find it in them to use words. Sometimes it was just nice listening to him ramble, or blow off steam.

  
  
  
  


It wasn’t such a hidden secret that Kobra longed to get a taste of the crash queen life. Since they were fifteen, they took every chance they could to watch the races, loving how their adrenaline rose, even from the sidelines. They wanted to drive, to have that control only to hang off the edge of it. They didn’t care much for gambling or wearing some other racer’s merch, because they promised themself that was going to be them one day.

But in order to become a racer, he needed a car. One of the good things about going in and out of the city, thankfully, was the chance to make a hefty sum of carbons. It took a while for Kobra to get good at it, especially getting past patrol Dracs, but Kobra slowly became a master of smuggling contraband. Small stuff, of course; paints, mixtapes, and alcohol were his specialties. Still, it took up to two years to save up enough for a car, in between survival expenses and between Kobra and Pony? Well, vanity was a virtue to them both.

Not only that, but Kobra had to know a good deal when they saw one. They needed something sturdy and fast, and they got really picky about the cars they’d pass by. Only one stood out to them. It screamed danger in all the right ways. It was probably illegally obtained, considering the model was usually only reserved for exterminators.

That’s how the Kobra Kid teamed up with a vintage Trans AM and took the racetrack by storm.

After that, Show Pony became their number one fan, despite being terrified for their life. And usually, the races ended with Kobra somewhere in a middle place. It wasn’t about competition, though, it was never about that. Kobra only tried when there was spite involved, like the time Doctor Death Defying called them out for not being able to land a trophy since they started.

That was also the first time Show Pony rode with them for good luck. Now Pony understood why Kobra enjoyed the thrill of it all, screaming out the adrenaline as the car whipped around, holding on as metal bumped harshly against each other. At the end, Kobra placed a sloppy kiss on Kobra’s cheek as they both held their first gold trophy.

  
  
  
  


Among all the times Kobra got to play and live their life, they always sank back into the grave reality of his brother’s duties. Sometimes the radio calls went alright, and sometimes, they really didn’t.

_ “Kobra? Do you hold funerals out in the desert? Over.” _

“Sorta. We call ‘em mailbox memorials. When a runner dies, someone finds their mask and puts it in the mailbox for the Phoenix Witch. A mask is like someone’s soul. Over.” Kobra tucked a hand behind their head, ruminating on the thought. They knew why he was asking, but when there was no response from the other end, he bit his tongue and continued. “Who did you kill?”

_ “He...he seemed older. Grey hair. His mask covered his full face, almost all white with red lines and sharp teeth--” _

Kobra could hear the strain in his voice, and their teeth clenched together hard. “I knew of him. I’ll make sure his mask got mailed.”

_ “I’m sorry, Kobra.” _

“I know you are.”

Kobra liked to imagine his kill count could be worse. But even one was enough to make their heart sink. Even injuring runners out there made them question why they still hung onto hope. They figured it was always the guilt that cracked his voice in every confession. The guilt that hung off him without ever asking for forgiveness.

  
  
  
  


Even though Kobra had direct audio contact with their brother, it didn’t stop them from going into the city. But there was always another step to take forward, and soon, the siblings started planning meeting places.

Most of the time, it was in a library far enough away from BLi headquarters that they were just out of range of surveillance. Even though Kobra was happy to see him, they could tell his health was going under. The older they both got, the closer he was to graduating into a killing machine. The corporation would finally grasp what remained of his humanity in a chokehold and shake it out of him, and he seemed on the edge of snapping. Kobra didn’t know what to do.

Kobra couldn’t stand it anymore, after their brother’s skin had finally started going greyish. “You don’t sound too good,” they mentioned, by the shuffling of his feet, the slow yet unsteady breaths. Fuck, even the uneasy humming of his aura.

“Can...can we go somewhere else?” he whispered back. “It’s bad today. Even standing is a chore.”

Their eyes glanced over at the librarian at the counter, then pretended to slide a book off the shelf. “Got any place we could go?”

“I’ll radio you coordinates.” Nothing more. He turned and left after returning a book, but Kobra stuck an earpiece in and waited, trying not to bounce on the balls of their feet. They almost jumped when they heard his voice, and left the library quietly to follow in his footsteps. They were always on the lookout for cameras, and planned their path in the blind spots.

Kobra had never been in the tunnels before, and they had no idea why they hadn’t started long ago. Yes, it was so much dingier and a lot more wet, the air was acrid, but it felt so abandoned. So free. And at the same time, they could tell these tunnels used to be war zones by the cracks and stains embedded in the walls. They fought the urge to run their fingers over these marks of history.

When they finally found their brother, he all but fell into their arms, deflated. Kobra held them tight. What they wouldn’t do to just throw him over their shoulder and run to the sun... “You need to get outta there, Tiger. It’s killin’ you,” they thought aloud.

“I’ve only got two months left until I’m officially in...” He was trembling now, breaking Kobra’s heart. “I’m so tired, though. I’m tired of this ugly fuckin’ city. It’s...it’s so dismal, compared to your world. So lifeless.”

They gently knelt down, easing him to sit. “There’s still time to leave, time to break free.” Fuck keeping the thoughts to themself. He knew it was the truth. As his eyes drifted blankly, they wondered if they were ever in any fights down here.

“It would be cowardly for me to just pack my things and run. You know...when I first started, there were at least twelve of us. We’re only down to two now. Either others were killed in the field, or reassigned as Dracs. Probably dead anyway.” His voice cracked. “I want to, Kid. I really do. But I also have power right now. Power that I can use--”

Kobra felt like they swallowed a brick. No. He couldn’t have been seriously considering this. “You’re...not actually considering going full Exterminator, are you?”

He shook his head--  _ thank the Witch _ . “I can see both sides now, and I can see BLi for what they really are. If I turn, they’re gonna make my brain mechanic--” Kobra fought back thoughts of screaming and harsh buzzing and... “--and I’ll lose everything I’ve learned. Everything you’ve shown me. I-- I’m gonna lose color. I’m gonna lose choice. Everything. But the power that I have, I still have time to turn it on them.”

“How so?” Kobra raised a gentle hand to clean his forehead. It lingered there, studying his bone structure.

“Are you kidding? I can go anywhere inside the headquarters, just about. The Director trusts me, well-- he trusts me enough. Korse thinks I’m wrapped around his finger...I could...I want to...”

Kobra was flooded with relief. “Poison the party.”  _ Party Poison _ ...shit, that’s a good name. Maybe they’d call him that from now on.

“Poison the party.” It was good to see him smile.

They sat leaning against each other. Kobra imagined their mother with them, like this was how family was meant to be.

“Hey.” He broke Kobra’s train of thought, shaking them back into reality. “I left a surprise for you. I get worried about you out there, even though we never cross paths. But I know I’m not the only threat out there.”

“You got me a present?” Kobra was over the moon. “That’s sweet. Where is it?”

He grabbed their hand just for the skin contact. Kobra gave it a warm squeeze. “Northwest sector, there’s a small park. Between the boulder and the dock at the pond, there’s a metal box. Be safe finding it,” he warned them.

“Are you leaving already?” Kobra’s smile vanished. “C’mon, we just got here.”

“You’ve already made me feel a lot better. Just...promise me you’ll wait for me in the Zones, yeah? You’ll take me away?”

“Whatever you say. I’ve got a pretty sweet hookup right now, and they’d love to add one more to the crew,” Kobra didn’t want to let him go, but his words were convincing enough to assure them things were gonna be okay in the near future. Freedom was close.

They watched to make sure he could stand up on his own. “You’re my family,” he’d said. Kobra’s grin returned. “You’re the most important thing to me now.” Pulling the chain off from around his neck, he handed over his dog tags.

They took the chain and held it close to their chest. When they had to part, they remained and looked over the two metal tags. BLi had given him a serial number as a name, how disgusting. Still, they let the chain dangle from around their neck, tucking it under their shirt to keep the warmth, and headed to the aforementioned park.

  
  
  


Parks in Battery City were like liminal spaces. For such a monochrome nation, a place that thrives on hard stone, seeing grass and trees and fresh, blue water always threw Kobra through a loop. Still, and this was something they’d never admit, Battery City parks were one of his favorite places to be. Just out of the sheer absurdity alone.

The box wasn’t hard to find, thankfully. The shine of the metal was easy to spot once they knew where to look. They flipped the lid open and pulled out what was left for them-- a white undershirt. It didn’t have much stretch to it, and the fabric was unlike one he’d ever felt before. Thick. They didn’t really appreciate the tiny BLi logo sewn in the back of it, but after a few seconds, it clicked. Kobra knew exactly what this was.

  
  
  


Kobra and Pony came up with a rather stupid plan. Kobra was getting tired of their brother on the edge of wasting away and Pony was tired of Kobra worrying about their brother. The plan was to scrounge around an active BLi storage area and narrowly avoid getting ghosted. If he showed up on the scene, maybe they could abduct him and run off into the sunset.

The problem was, he didn’t show up on this raid. Kobra avoided raids for nearly four fucking years and he didn’t even show up. The only good thing was that Kobra managed to find and steal a power glove, out of all things, but they were knocked out cold in the process and woke up cold and alone. Pony was taken.

Since Pony was so beloved amongst the zones, though, it wasn’t hard to rally a makeshift crew for a search and rescue. Kobra was just disappointed, since taking their brother home was going to be a lot harder this way. They were terrified, because out of all the years of avoiding the eyes of this damn place, now they were actually going to break into the place and definitely get noticed and definitely get shot at.

The hardest part was actually facing him again this way. Having to fight, at first, at least until Kobra took out the security cameras. At that point, he actually asked to get roughed up a little for the sake of appearances, and, okay, stealing the power glove was a cool idea. What was even cooler was seeing him kill a Drac. Hell yeah, he was definitely going to be Party Poison.

When Pony was free, Kobra tried to reach out to him, wanting to beg him to run with them, but their lips went still. There was a bruising force against their chest, and they fell back against Kobra, and closed their eyes. It hurt, but they had to play it up for now.

“Kobra?? Fuck, Kobra!” Pony called frantically as they dragged their body to the door. Kobra opened an eye and pressed their finger to their lips. Pony scowled, holding back the urge to smack Kobra’s head. There were also many questions Pony needed answering, but first, they needed to get out.

They made it to the door, at least, and Pony kicked the lock open. They yelped, considering their skates were gone and had nothing but fishnet as protection.

“Pony, what’s wrong with you?” Kobra dropped the act and stood up straight, gripping Pony’s hand so they could run together, at least for half a mile until Pony’s foot started to ache. Kobra sighed, then stopped them so he could shift Pony onto their back and carry them the rest of the way to their getaway van.

Kobra glanced down at themself, frowning when he saw the blast hole in their favorite shirt, and the black scorch on the dog tags. As much as he hated what was embedded on it, it was still one of the only things that they had of their brother.

Pony slid into the back of the van and pulled Kobra in, and slammed the door so they could start the drive. They were pouting hard, mourning more over the loss of their skates rather than the pain in the foot.

Kobra groaned and pulled the ruined shirt, and pressed a hand over their chest. BLi, evil as they were, made some pretty nifty bulletproof material, which was tightened around his torso. It also passed for a pretty good binder, all things considered. This was a really good gift, it made Kobra feel loved.

“You just let him shoot you like that? You could have died!” Pony grabbed their cheeks hard and squished them. “You really scared me, crazy.”

“Anybody could die at any point, that’s the exchange we chose for savin’ the world, bitch.” Kobra grinned, the corners of their lips folding under the squished flesh. They poked Pony’s nose. “Let’s go make a plan to get your rollerskates back.” When they made it back to the trailer they’d been camping in, Kobra took Pony on their back again to save their feet from burning.

The second time they broke into BLi headquarters was more of a discreet search and rescue mission. The screens displayed on the buildings outside were just about to broadcast the S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W graduation ceremony, and frankly, Kobra was too scared to watch. Besides, they had to get Pony’s skates back from the block where BLi held confiscated items. That was easy enough, despite still grabbing some attention.

Pony beamed when they were reunited with the skates, but since they were the driver of this getaway, they didn’t slip them on just yet. As they hung around the Trans AM, panic started to rise on the streets, and all Kobra could see on the screens was shaky camera movements. The ceremony hall was just a block away, and soon enough, Party Poison was racing from around the corner and actually jumping in with them, and this was it. Holy shit. Party Poison finally took freedom for himself.

  
  
  
  


Of course, it wasn’t just an easy drive back home. Company tailed them by the time they reached the middle of Zone 1, and Kobra turned to straddle the seat and take aim. Party Poison aided, his shot better than Kobra’s. The only problem was that one truck after the next kept appearing behind each other.

“Damn, Poison, how big was the stick you put in their ass?” Kobra teased.

Poison swallowed heavily. “...I killed the Director,” he admitted.

Kobra’s jaw dropped, but then a wild laugh escaped them. “Fuck, that’s hardcore! Well, that’s certainly one way to put us on the top of the hitlist.”

Though Poison was able to keep his focus, his cheeks flushed pink. “I’m sorry,” he muttered among the roar of wind and engines. Kobra just laughed and kept shooting. One van managed to get its front tires popped, another car got its driver taken out, and some other vehicles behind them were forced to divert from crashing.

“Grip metal, motorbabies! I’m goin’ off-road!” Pony shouted at them before turning the wheel and heading out to the mouth of a canyon.

The added bumpiness wasn’t a help at all, but Kobra and Poison kept as steady as they could and took out another truck before entering the narrowed passage.

Poison’s head turned to look up at the cragged rock walls all around them, holding his breath.

“Pony and I are crash queen champions! It’s okay, we got you!” Kobra grabbed Poison’s wrist steadily, nodding to him. “It’s gonna be okay.” A laser blast cut him off at the last second, darting between them, and snapping their focus back into action.

BLi was good, but they weren’t  _ that _ good. The canyon was doing more of the work for them at this point, though one too-sharp turn had Poison thrown out and rolling against the dirt. His body hit the hard wall.

“PONY! Stop!” Kobra waited for the AM to slow down at least a bit before they jumped out, stumbling anyway. But once they picked themself back up, they ran to their brother’s side and pulled him to sit up. “Poison? Poison, hey--”

“I’m good.” Poison coughed hard. “Just knocked the wind outta me. Help me up.” He took Kobra’s hand and steadied himself, though his eyes rolled up and he fell forward against Kobra with a groan.

Pony raced to join them, glancing between the two.

“I think it’s just bad vertigo,” Kobra thought aloud, gently pressing around for any soft spots. There were definitely going to be bad bruises in the morning.

“The Dracs?” Pony put their blaster up, just in case, though the canyon was quiet.

Poison came to again after a few seconds and shook their head. “Let’s check the damage. Please,” he muttered, and placed a step forward.

Kobra made sure his arm was secure around their shoulder as they backtracked on foot to assess the damage. The wreckage was pretty bad, but the ones who remained alive stayed on high alert. Poison huffed hard and raised his hand until he realized the blaster wasn’t there anymore. “Fuck, where did it--”

“I gotcha,” Kobra assured him, pointing their own gun and shooting, Pony on Poison’s other side. Once the Dracs were down, Kobra lowered Poison to sit again. “Pony’s gonna get us outta here, and we’ll have you get some rest. Don’t think they’ll be able to bother us for a while.”

Poison’s stare went blank, though he blinked. “Kobra?”

“Yeah, brother. I’m right here.” Kobra smiled, holding his hand.

Poison swallowed hard. “Did I fuck up? I didn’t kill us, did I?”

“Nah.” Kobra stood up again, brushing some sand from his jeans. “What you did, it’s gonna change shit around here. But we’re never gonna die. Hang tight, I’ll be right back.” They reached into their back as they turned and walked closer to the wreckage, and knelt down over a masked exterminator.

“Kobra? Kobra!” Pony called out. “Come on, we should get going!”

“One second!” When they returned, they were holding up both their hands, now dripping red and one holding a switchblade. They crouched down in front of Poison one more time, dropped the knife, then pressed their hands gently atop the dirtied white hair. “I now anoint you, officially, an enemy of Battery City, in the blood of your enemies. Assassin of the underground. Party Poison.”

Poison shut his eyes for a moment, but couldn’t help but smile. “Th-thanks, Kobra...but this is kinda disgusting.”

“Welcome to the desert, baby. We’re all disgusting out here.” Kobra flipped the knife closed before pocketing it again, and Pony helped Poison up. “Pony has the real dye with your name on it, anyway.”   
  
Pony rolled their eyes. “Yeah, sure, take any of  _ my _ stuff without asking.”

Kobra took Poison and grinned, hugging him as they all got back to the AM.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly i'm not sure which chapter to work on next: ghoul or jet. comment on which one you'd like to see?
> 
> thanks for reading! <3


	3. Surrender the Night / Light Behind Your Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well that was a long waiting time between chapters, oops! i've been working on a few other things in the meantime, but this had been sorta poking at my attention and i finally wanted to update it c: also i missed jet star a bunch so i hope this does him some justice

The Mortician was one of the youngest people in the history of Battery City to graduate medical school at only age 17, and was doomed to work with the dead.

When he turned 18, his mother died, leaving him with no other family. He wanted to leave Battery City behind after that, but BLi had plans for his impressive skills. They upped his dosage, gave him a good salary, cut his hair off, and tossed him in the most important morgue in the industry. The morgue where the dead Killjoys go.

The Mortician was very quick to learn something special about the Drac masks when he was enlisted. If the corpses were in good enough condition, the masks could reanimate the bodies. Of course, the person that the killjoy was before would completely be wiped clean upon reawakening, and all they needed after that was a little of BLi’s conditioning, and they were all ready for battle. And that’s all he had to do; strip away the rest of their color, test the bodies, and mask ‘em for the greater good.

_ He hated it.  _ Not that he’d ever admit it to his superiors, but there were times that he wished that he was the one lying on the slab instead, toe-tagged to be wheeled away to the furnace instead. He hated the white hood, he hated his coworkers, he hated the fucking smell of it all, he hated the absolute and neverending loneliness.

It was impossible to keep track of the days after working there so long. Sure, there was a clock, and he was allowed to leave and watch the sun rise and set, but it didn’t matter. He did his best not to think of the days where the tiny things like that did matter, though it seemed all he needed was to meet someone who could remind him of that. The first time he’d felt actually alive again was with a scream, stumbling until he fell flat on his back.

The body on his table had twitched and gasped violently back to life before he even got the chance to check its--  _ her  _ condition. She screamed as well and sat up, wild brown curls sticking up all around her as if she’d been electrocuted, and they both stared at each other for a minute before she started scrambling for a blaster that wasn’t there. “What the fuck--” she mumbled.

He heard hurried footsteps coming down the hallway, and he rushed back to his feet to force her shoulders down, putting her back in a horizontal position before two guards came in to check on him. “Act dead,” he warned her.

“Everything alright?” one asked.

The white hood covered his expression, but he was panting heavily. “Yeah. A, uh, really big spider crawled out of its mouth, of all things. But I took care of it.” He nodded for emphasis, and managed to get them to leave quickly. When the door shut, he shuddered upon the feel of something lightly pinching his wrist. “The fuck?”

“I’m a fearsome spider,” she hissed. She’d bitten him. “Gonna crawl all around your dreams.”

Fuck this, he couldn’t breathe. Tearing the hood off, he held it in one hand and kept panting, stepping back from the body. “Why’d they put you in a bag if you’re not dead, huh?”

“A bag...?” When she took a better look at the discarded hood in his hands, she squinted until the black smiley face on it finally clicked in her head. “Ohhhh. Shit. Wait, so I’m  _ not _ with the Witch right now?”

He shook his head. “Clearly, you were knocked out during a fight, and someone must’ve misread your vitals. This...has never happened. Um--” Now that he had a second to think, he realized he’d lied to the guards. He was afraid of what they’d do upon discovering a living Killjoy.

Fuck. Oh,  _ fuck, _ he had a living criminal alone in the room with him.

“Hey, d’you know where my clothes went?” she asked, snapping him out of his panic.

“They’re either on their way to examination or the furnace, sorry,” he told her as he was in the process of removing his own jacket to hand to her. It only covered her torso, but at least it gave him an excuse to get spare clothes. “S-stay here, I’ll be right back.” He backed up toward the door and slipped out to rummage through the nearest closet. He stole an extra shirt and pants before anyone could notice and was back in his examination room within two minutes.

She smiled crookedly at him. “Thanks,” she muttered, and got dressed after he’d turned his back. The fabric itself wasn’t uncomfortable, but the crisp, untainted white certainly was, and it made her cringe. “Hey, is there any chance...was anyone else brought in here with me?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Just one other.”

The calmness of her face paled, leaving behind a hollow visage like she knew and dreaded the answer. He didn’t need to say more, he knew by the way she clutched her chest to help her breathe. “Missile...”

“I won’t let him get Drac’d, if that--” The words felt sour coming out of his mouth. He didn’t even know the person, but it still felt...too soon. “--if it helps.”

“Witch, please. Don’t let him kill our friends.” Heartbreak was heavy in her voice, but she tried not to let it show through her face.

He took a deep breath and nodded, leaning over to pick his hood up from the floor. “Okay, um, how about this. I save him from an afterlife of BLi, and then I get you outta here. You can find your way home from the streets, right?”

She nodded grimly, avoiding his eyes.

“Good.” Behind the examination table was a wall of cabinet drawers, and he checked a clipboard for the freshest bodies brought in. After taking a blank toe tag and marking it for incineration, he pulled open the correct cabinet and tied the tag on.

A hand covered his, making him jump. She’d stood up to catch a glimpse of the body, brow furrowed in pain. “I’ll write a song for you, Missile. May the Witch guide you somewhere somewhere far fuckin’ better than this hell.”

He bit his tongue and watched her smile sadly. His throat ran dry, and he could feel his own chest sink. He hated that he knew what she was feeling so well. But before he got too caught up in his empathy, he handed his hood to her. “Put it on,” he whispered.

Of course, she was immediately hesitant.

“It’s not gonna reprogram you or anything. These types of masks don’t do that.” To prove he was right, he flipped it inside out and showed that the fabric didn’t have any computer chips or machinations inside. When he flipped it again, he held it out to her. “I don’t know if there are any Dracs out there who might recognize you.”

She huffed and took it to pull over her head. “Oh, hey. It-- it kinda smells good.”

He blinked, and the slightest flush of pink tinted his cheeks. “Thanks. Anyway, let’s go before anyone gets suspicious.”

She turned around to take one last look at the cabinet door, then braced herself and followed him into the hallway.

“Just don’t talk to anyone, and we should be fine,” he muttered to her, leading her out to the front desk of his department so he could sign out.

The receptionist looked them both up and down. “Leaving early?”

“I have an early appointment today, I already let the manager know,” he lied, scribbling down on the clipboard on the desk. “See you tomorrow. She’s just escorting me home.” He pointed his thumb at the killjoy.

The receptionist squinted. “You know...shoes are mandatory in this building, right? And where’d your jacket go?”

The killjoy stared down at her bare feet through the hood, and her brain immediately went into defense mode.

To his surprise, a scalpel slid out of her sleeve, and she grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and wrapped one arm tight around his chest from behind. The blade was placed up against his carotid, and she started stepping backward toward the door. “Stay where you are. Don’t touch anything,” she warned the receptionist.

But by the time she spoke, the security button was already pressed. Four guards ran out, blasters raised, and the killjoy clutched her hostage tighter.

He shut his eyes. “Just ghost me,” he whispered.

“Wh-- no! Shut up, you’re ruining my momentum,” she hissed back at him.

“They’ll be more distracted with my body, so you can run.” He tried to press his skin further into the blade. “It’s okay.”

“Drop him and put your hands up!” one of the guards shouted.

She huffed. “Tell me why you deserve to die by my hands.”

His eyes scrunched tighter, brow knotted. “I don’t wanna do this anymore.”

She was silent at first, and then a heavy sigh escaped her. “Fine, then I’ll make sure you don’t.”

Without thinking, he tried jerking out of her grip, but she held onto him too tight to escape. One of the guards let his trigger finger slip, and blasted him in the side of his rib. His hand immediately pressed to the wound with a cry, and he pushed the killjoy backward through the door.

Through her stumbling and trying to recover, the scalpel flew from her hand, but her eyes targeted a manhole. She quickly grabbed her hostage again and pulled him down into the sewer before they could get chased, and she grinned in pride. “Shit, that was close. Thanks,” she exhaled as they clung to the ladder leading downward.

His hands were shaking and accumulated sweat fast, which didn’t help his grip at all. As carefully as he could, he descended until he hit the bottom, narrowly avoiding the sewage river. “Thiiiiiiis is so unsanitary, I don’t wanna croak in here. Oh, no.”

“It’s okay. You won’t croak, not under my watch.” She pat him on the shoulder, then grabbed his wrist to pull him along.

With his free hand clutching his wound again, he grunted. “Why are you taking me with you? I-I work for Better Living, you’re supposed to hate corporate scum like me. ”

“Yeah, well,  _ you _ don’t hate  _ me _ , now, do you?” she asked, smirking over her shoulder.

He swallowed thickly. “I panicked...”

“I thought Bat City folks don’t feel things.” She turned a corner, sticking close to the wall.

All he could do was stutter in response until he gave up on trying to find the right words.

When she stopped walking again, she looked up at a new manhole. “BLi steals our bodies, so we’re gonna steal some right back. Dead or alive.” She placed her hand on the ladder. “Can you climb?”

“I guess so.” He glanced down at the wound. The red stain had grown in size, but he figured it could be worse. The pain was just dizzying.

“Do your best. I’ll catch you if you fall,” she promised, and gestured for him to climb up first.

He did so, slowly, and pushed the metal cover aside so he could roll out onto the street. They were still in the more metropolitan area, but it had started to rain, so the traffic was much less busy. Still, the water suddenly hitting his face wasn’t as pleasant as he’d hoped.

Once she made her way out, she knelt over him. “Still breathin’?”

He nodded.

“Milkshakes. Time to get up.” She pulled him by the hand back on his feet, and they were careful wandering behind buildings until they spotted a motorbike. Her eyes lit up with relief. “Yes, a ticket outta here!” Pulling him along once more, she dropped down to her knees and hotwired the bike. “Get on.”

“W-wait.” He shuffled back.

“C’mon, it’s now or never. You wanna keep company with the dead, or do you wanna  _ live _ ?” She swung her leg over, keeping her eyes on him. “Let’s jet.”

In all honesty, he felt like if he went with her, he’d only be straddling both sides. But it could be fun dying in rebellion, so he took a deep breath and sat behind her. “Just don’t wait for me if I fall off,” he muttered.

She chuckled as she revved the bike, and took off before they were caught again.

He buried his face into her back and shut his eyes, the sound and feel of the bike keeping him alive for the time being. It was cold, the rain and the wind, and he did all he could not to start shivering. Then again, keeping his muscles tense kept him upright, kept him clinging to her, and he got so lost in his thoughts that the shock of cold rain to dry heat nearly made him jump.

“Still with me back there?” she shouted over the roar of the engine.

He could only grip at her stomach in response, but it seemed a good enough answer for her, for now. Everything started to go fuzzy and white, shit, it was bright out here. Maybe this was the afterlife after all.

  
  
  
  


He had no idea how much time had gone by, or where he was, or  _ who _ he was, for a minute. Everything came and went in blurs, muffled voices and vision like frosted glass. If this was death, it was really trippy and uncomfortable. As he tried to wander through the brain fog, he reached out for any resemblance of comfort, and a woman gently singing reached out, though her figure was skewed. The song, though, finally eased his tension.

_ “Starlight, starbright, make everything alright...” _

When the fog finally cleared, his eyes fluttered slowly open. It took him an extra second to remember how to breathe, but when he inhaled, a sharp pain surged through his side. Despite not moving at all, the dizziness hit him like a freight train. 

“Easy there, friend.” There she was, kneeling by his side. Her arms were folded and her chin resting against them. “Welcome to the desert. Are you all there?”

He blinked a few times, and turned his head. He was resting on a pillow, and there was a thin, itchy blanket over his body. His shirt was missing, as far as he could tell, and the rest of his body seemed to be on a mattress. Maybe it had a bed frame and everything. Heat rushed to his face in full force, which was an occurrence that hadn’t happened to him in years. His pulse went from resting to adrenaline-rate alarmingly fast, and he tried to breathe through it.

“Hellooooo?” she called out softly, teasing him. “Did you bleed your brains out?”

“Uh-- n-no?” he responded. His voice sounded like it had lost a fight to a paper shredder, and his mouth was dry and filmy. “The desert?”

She hummed in confirmation. “Don’t worry, I had a guy patch up the hole in your side. But he said it’s probably best to wait on painkillers until after you were awake. Something about Bat City meds possibly gettin’ crossed in your stream and killin’ you or something.”

“You really took me all the way out to the desert.” His eyes shifted to take in the surrounding walls. They were graffiti’d up so much he couldn’t tell what the original paint color was supposed to be, and over the paint were tons of band posters. One band seemed to reign supreme in the mix, though-- the poster had a green background with a red circle, a logo he couldn’t recognize, dead in the center. Mad Gear and the Missile Kid. It was the biggest poster of them all, anyway, and there were a few of them scattered all over the room. The focus helped him calm down slightly, though he shivered hard when he felt sweat accumulate and drip over his skin.

“Yeah, I did.” She straightened her posture. “Are you a singer?”

“What?”

“You were singing in your sleep, every so often.” Her smile grew. “It was nice.”

“Uh...wh--” He tried to sit up, and there were two things that kept him laying down. One, the pain kept him in place. Two, he immediately discovered his wrists were bound by a chain of zip ties that connected to the bedpost. Well, there went the calm. “Um--”

“I was about to explain that. Okay, so, I took you to this place called the Nest, because that’s where the closest medic was. And considering we stumbled in here in BLi uniforms, they didn’t trust you. Even though you were pretty unconscious, and I vouched for you. But this was the only way I could get ‘em to help you.”

His lips parted, and his body shuddered again. Medic. Meds. It finally occurred to him why his body was freaking out. “Withdrawals...”

Her smile faded. “Those suppressants are wearin’ off, huh? Can I do anything to help?”

His gaze fixated on the bulging veins on the backs of his hands, and his tongue poked out over his lips. “Water?” he asked pathetically.

“Yeah, no problem. Hang tight, Bat.” Pushing herself to her feet, she left the room with the door open, and he did his best to pull the blanket over his whole body to avoid being looked at. Keeping his breathing steady, he tried to listen to anything from the hallway. Someone called out to his captor,  _ Maddy _ , they called her.

  
  
  
  


The room he was in lacked any sunlight. The window was broken a long time ago and simply boarded up with the curtain always shut, so he never knew what time it was. The only way he could tell the passing of time was through his hair growth, but it wasn’t too long before the Nest dwellers agreed that he didn’t have to be cuffed. He had to be uncuffed to piss anyway, but for a good while, he hardly had the strength to even stand, so it was agreed he was harmless. Maddy stayed by him most often, with the help of some other various killjoys to help with his wound, and he would try to be as polite as he could, despite finding trust hard to come by.

The withdrawals had brought on surges of intense emotion, and he was all over the place. Happy, angry, scared, excited, desperate, lonely-- no, maybe not lonely. Not with Maddy there. 

By the time he finally could stand up for more than a minute, she got him some plain black clothes to try and ease him in slowly to the desert aesthetic. “Let’s jet, I’m taking you back to our base,” she announced to him.

“Our...?”

“Well...it used to be mine and my partner’s, but...y’know.” The other bodybag, he remembered. “So I guess it’s mine now.” She took him down to the main area, and they both thanked everyone for their help before they took off on the same bike they’d arrived on.

He still never got used to how intense the sun was, and held tight to her hand once they stepped outside until he could actually see. When he mounted behind her on the bike, it really hit him full force just how close they had to be, pressed against each other, and his heart raced again.

“Hold tight,” she said with a grin, and ripped sand as she drove off down the road. They stopped in front of an old shabby diner when the sun finally started to go down. “Here we go! Home sweet secret home.”

He almost felt like he  _ wasn’t _ supposed to be here, but it’s not like he had anywhere else to go now. “You sure it’s alright for me to be here?” he asked anyway.

“Yeah! Now, there’s a lot we gotta do for you, but first...we gotta start you off with a name.”

“Oh, it’s--”

“Ah-- no. Not your corporate name.” She pressed a gentle finger against his lips and smiled deviously. “A proper Killjoy name.”

He blinked, then took a step back. “Right.” Tilting his face up, he got a good view of the hazy purple sky and breathed in slowly. “...Wow. Does it always look like that?”

“Well, during the sunset, yeah. Just you wait, though. I’ll get you a jacket.” She disappeared inside the diner for a minute and rushed back out with a dusty black jacket with an old American flag patch covering the whole back. As long as it could keep him warm, he didn’t care. She led him up to the roof, sitting with their legs dangling off the side.

“So, I don’t have a name yet, but you do,” he thought aloud. “You’re...are you Mad Gear?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Are you famous?”

“I guess, if fame means anything out here these days.” Maddy shrugged. “I had a band, and Missile Kid and I would usually give these pretty awesome hype speeches before big battles.”

He lowered his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Eyes up, friend. I want you to see the stars.” She tilted his chin back up. “Missile Kid’s okay out there, wherever he is. Probably way up there, as some believe. I don’t think I’d mind bein’ up among the stars myself, honestly.”

When the first stars finally peeked out, he grinned at the sight. Tears filled his eyes. “They’re beautiful.”

“The song you would sing in your sleep, it made me wonder if you ever saw the stars before.” She started to hum what she remembered of the tune. “ _ You must be my Lucky Star, 'cause you make the darkness seem so far.  _ Right?”

“Yeah, damn. I can’t believe I...remember the song so well. My mom taught it to me.”

“Mm, Lucky Star’s not that bad of a name.”

He scoffed. “I’m not that lucky.” Feeling the tears fall heavier, he reached up to wipe his face.

Maddy chuckled and shook her head. “I think you are. Let’s just say the name is a work in progress.” She leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder, gently nuzzling his stubble. “And maybe clean you up a bit, huh?”

“Are you calling me dirty?” He smirked.

“No. No, just...” She pressed her hand gently to his cheek and chuckled. “Gritty. It’s different.”

Hearing the sound of his own laughter was almost dissociative, in a way, Much like many other things in the recent weeks, the sound felt wrong, but it wasn’t like he could help it. He was actually happy now. Smiling was one thing, but...she made him laugh, and the tears started up again.

“It’s okay,” Maddy whispered. “You’re okay, Star. You’re gonna be okay.”

  
  
  
  


It took Star a year to get himself comfortable with a killjoy life, fixing appliances around the diner, and fixing Mad Gear’s wounds when she’d come back from claps. When the second year came around, she started pulling him along, meeting other crews, having him be a field medic. Nobody seemed to recognize him anymore as the wounded BLi employee anymore, but they were also sure to let him know that he wasn’t just a replacement for Missile Kid.

Mad Gear stuck to his side like glue, though. And in return, he fell in infatuation with the way she would rev up the crowd, as if she could actually guarantee them that the future was going to be better.

“You’re so hardcore,” Star told her as they sat on their mattress in the diner. He was stitching up the back of her shoulder while she noodled away on her guitar to keep her mind off the pain. “You didn’t even flinch when you got shot.”

“Yeah, well...I guess I’ve been stunned too many times that the effect started wearin’ off, huh?” She hummed to herself.

After the last stitch was tied off, Star leaned forward and kissed the base of her neck. “Is the effect of this wearing off yet?”

She placed her guitar down and turned around. “Never.” Throwing herself on top of him, their lips collided, and she straddled his waist. Their hands gripped at each other, his more carefully to mind her fresh wound, and hers slid downward to his belt.

In the weeks passing, Dr D announced that the Director was killed by one of BLi’s own. Or, at least the newest Killjoy to the scene. It was a calling to her, to round up the crews and make an ambush while BLi was still trying to get their shit together. She made the plan quick and messily, but she still had enough crews willing to run into the fire with her.

Though the Killjoys had outnumbered BLi in the battle, they still had the upper hand on their home turf. Mad didn’t want to call it quits, but there was a look in her eye Star hadn’t seen before. She was terrified. Of what, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t have the time to ask before yanking him along to hijack a Drac van and get the hell off the field.

“Where are we going?” Star asked from the passenger’s seat, watching the pillars of black smoke get smaller against the setting sun.

“I’m sorry, I-- I can’t afford to die. They almost got me.” She was panting, her hands were shaking. She wasn’t well. Something was really wrong.

“Maddy...”

After another minute, she had to pull the van over and throw her door open to vomit outside.

“Witch, Maddy, take it easy.” He turned the van off and pulled her into the back. She didn’t have any serious wounds, but he was aware of the signs of a panic attack, and all he could do was hold her through the night.

Star’s eyes rolled beneath his eyelids before they slowly opened. There was no blinding sun forcing him to wake just yet, but he knew it was better to start the day early. Carefully stretching his limbs out, his hand stroked her shoulder. “Hey...” he whispered, “We should get moving.”

Mad coughed lightly as she stirred, and turned her head. “That time already, huh?” she mumbled. When Star gave her room to roll on her back, she groaned. “Shit. No, yeah, I need to get up.” She pressed her hand over her stomach as she sat up, and kicked open the back doors of the van.

“You okay?” Star asked, shifting on his hands and knees to follow her to the edge. He held her hair back as she leaned over, dry heaving. “What happened to you?”

Her silence only made him worry more, and she sighed. “Can I have some water?”

He quickly handed his flask over. “The heat’s getting pretty bad, we need to be more careful if it’s hurting you this much.”

She only drank enough water to wash the sour from her mouth, swallowing diluted acid. After catching her breath, her head lowered and she shut her eyes tight. “Listen, Starman--”

“Oh,  _ FUCK!” _ He hopped over her, his feet landing on the ground as he pulled his gun out. Immediately, he shot a BLi surveillance camera four times for good measure. “I didn’t know they’d installed one over here. We really gotta go, there’s no telling how close they could be.”

She sighed and forced herself to stand, shaking her head. Clearly, her news was going to have to wait. She tried again to hotwire the van, but the echoes of approaching vehicles meant that they were out of time. “Shit, shit shit...no, come on!” She punched the steering wheel, then huffed. “Fuck it. Let’s jet, Star.”

“You mean run?!”

“We got no other choice. I can’t let ‘em kill either of us.”

He raced out of the van with her and took off by her side, trying to search for any cover they could find. “Why are you so afraid? What’s wrong?”

“If I tell you, you have to swear to me you’ll keep running,” she barked.

“Fine. Whatever you say, but you’re fuckin’ scaring me! You’re not dying, are you?”

“Not if I can help it.” There was no way they could outrun cars, but they’d be damned if they didn’t try. “We’re gonna be parents, Star.”

He did promise her he’d keep running no matter what, but his legs gave out, and he tumbled forward with a mouth full of sand.

“Swear to me you’ll protect her.” She pulled him back on his feet, gripping his shoulders. “You’ll find her and keep her away from Bat City.”

“Her--?”

“That’s what the Witch told me.”

Seconds later, though, the Drac cars surrounded them. Mad Gear still raised her guns and started firing as quick as she could. Star was stunned three times in the process. As she stood over his body, she kept shooting until the blasters ran out of battery, and they wrangled her like an animal.

Star was barely conscious when he watched them put the mask on her. She went down biting and screaming, even after the Drac process was taking effect, and they pulled her away. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t scream, couldn’t do anything except roast in the morning sun as they left him behind, not even giving him the decency of a bodybag.

He didn’t know how many hours had passed until he heard another engine echo in the distance, but it got closer. Closer and quieter, which meant it was slowing down. He felt his body get moved, and his conscience started to snap back at him once he was out of the direct sun.

“Hey there, Sunshine.” A hand brushed Star’s hair away from his face and fed him a small amount of water. “We’re gonna get you somewhere safe, okay?”

“Jet--” he croaked. “We-- we gotta...”

“That your name?” the voice asked. Star saw red, bright and blinding, but somehow soft.

He couldn’t answer back right away, but he managed to mutter out where the diner was, and they reset their course.

“I’m Party Poison, and this is my sibling Kobra.” Not like he could see much beyond colored blurs, but Star was grateful nonetheless. “Hang in there, Jet. You’ll be okay.”

He had to be okay. He made a promise, and he wouldn’t stop fighting until he got his girl.


	4. Tomorrow's Money / Boy Division

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so so so much to those who have left comments in the meantime and kicked my ass back into motivating me to post another chapter! i promise the final one's gonna come sooner than the last two have been. hope you're having a good day :) <3

Word around the zones was that the Wanderer was raised by a pack of coyotes. Nobody really can put a pin on when he showed up, or who had seen him around as a child. Perhaps he’d always been in the desert as a watchful guardian, creeping around caves and craters to keep stray runners from getting attacked while they slept. Maybe he was an agent of the Phoenix Witch. Maybe he was the one who would wake DESTROYA.

In truth, he wasn’t actually a desert-born. Nor was he a child of the city. The Wanderer had memories that no other zone runner would ever even dream of; his home was  _ green _ . Dangerously so, he used to think at times, whether or not he actually imagined trees and vines being able to move on their own, to be wary as to not end up as their prey, he’ll never get to find out again.

He couldn’t quite put an exact timestamp on when he was picked up by the renegade known as Doctor Death Defying, but he remembered his life being saved by the man. He remembered sitting by his side during the spinal injury, prohibiting him from ever using his legs again. He remembered learning how to drive the moment he could see over the dashboard, because it was a mutual decision that maybe they had to finally leave their home behind in hopes that there were better places out there than the overgrown, war-torn remains of Philadelphia.

“Say a prayer for California,” Dr. D told him when the journey started.

It started out with him, Dr. D, boxes of hoarded records, and their old windowless van driving across the ruins of America, seeing what the bombs had really done to what was once claimed the greatest country in the world. Cities didn’t have names anymore, at least those that went unclaimed by Better Living. They’d stop whenever they met with civilization again, scavenge for parts because God knows how many times the van needed fixing, and Dr. D started putting down his blaster and picking up a microphone, telling stories about the battles in the east for spare carbons or a little bit of food.

Stories were how he got the name Fun Ghoul. They’d met an Italian family on the coast of what was now the Great Craters who told him about how to break curses with olive oil and a few very important words. His favorite was  _ vaffanculo _ , which he got confused in pronouncing at first, and Dr. D thought he was pretty ghoulish and fun, so it fit.

Ghoul always made an effort to make memories in every city he passed through with two interchangeable methods: either get a tattoo or learn something new. His skin may have run out of space in the span of a couple years, but his mind never did. Somewhere along their travels, Ghoul became somewhat of a genius when it came to building things. Mechanical things of all sorts, though he found explosives to be the most fun.

Turns out that was a very useful thing to know when they reached California. Despite Dr. D trying to make sure that Ghoul was as far away from war as he could possibly keep him, running into big bad corporations with their big bad assembly-line minions was near impossible. Still, Ghoul wanted to do anything and everything he could to protect Dr. D. Upon finally arriving in California when Ghoul was in his early teens, they settled into an old communication station. That’s when D got the great idea that he could use his words for good here. Ghoul built his radio station from the broken pieces left behind, figuring everything out on his own with minor injuries along the way, but WKIL was eventually born.

It wasn’t easy, at first, but that’s where DJ Hot Chimp came in. The station used to be her go-to spot for scavenging, but once she discovered two new inhabitants, there was a standoff, then a mutual agreement that she would help get the word out and eventually become Dr. D’s apprentice.

Chimp was Ghoul’s tour guide to the Zones. She introduced him to the Nest, Tommy Chow Mein’s, the Crash Tracks, her own place where only the best of the best parties happened, though despite all the amazing environments Ghoul’s eyes were opened to, he also saw a lot of carnage with it. He knew of Better Living from other places, but the first taste he’d ever gotten of them in the desert was the body bags first.

“Yeah, sometimes zonerunners use them to sleep in,” Chimp explained to Ghoul as he knelt down by one.

Ghoul’s eyes bugged. “What?! Do they sleep with dead bodies?”

Chimp shook her head. “Nah, usually patrol trucks come around to collect ‘em the day after. Sometimes BLi HQ can repurpose bodies for Dracs, so if the bodies are taken out, they...get all gross and therefore become useless. And there’s a free bodybag included to stave off the chilly nights.”

Ghoul shuddered. “Grim.”

“Welcome to the Zones, my dude.” Chimp ruffled his messy black hair.   
  


Killjoys were a thing Ghoul was curious about, but could surprisingly not get that much information on. Then again, it wasn’t too often that he left the radio station when Dr. D needed his help. One would think a place such as a radio station was a great hub for information, but there were just some things Ghoul just couldn’t grasp. Oddly enough, the first time he ever encountered a real Killjoy group was also his first clap with Dracs.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dr. D’s voice was scolding him for bringing a knife to a blaster fight, but he didn’t mean to get caught in the middle of it. All he was trying to do was look for more parts for the van, and suddenly laser bolts were flying over his head from both sides. It took a minute for him to get a cool head again, and he remembered that knives could actually do a lot in a blaster fight. They can cut fuel lines. And loose fuel can cause fires. Big, fun fires that were Ghoul’s favorite. He didn’t stay long enough in the area to learn any of the names of the Killjoys, but he could make out their body language when the white Drac van suddenly burst into flame, which distracted the aforementioned Dracs long enough to ghost them. The Killjoys could definitely see Ghoul’s tiny silhouette in the distance.

Ghoul was also chased for a short time, but the Killjoys never got close enough by the time he got to his own van, and lost his trail on Route Guano. In short, Ghoul decided that Dracs suck. He laughed at his own pun.

Let it be known that Ghoul  _ did _ want to know any Killjoy better. He wanted to know what they were like. He loved listening to Chimp strut into the station with fresh and hot news about what happened in whatever zone or whatever route, but he didn’t want to be traced back to Dr. D, either. Ever since the station gained traction, it also became a target, and he knew Dracs were looking for him. Leaving the station was always a risk, lest he be followed.

Now, Doctor Death Defying could still defend himself. Ghoul once met a zonerunner who actually made it past their forties and claimed to have heard stories of the radio host in the East, and the battles he’d fought, but D just wasn’t into fighting anymore. So it was best Ghoul take precautions not to bring any fights to him. 

Ghoul mainly stayed around and made sure the building didn’t collapse over their heads, and he was working on a light fixture one evening when Chimp kicked the door open, nearly making Ghoul fall off his ladder. The rungs fell out from under him, but he clung to the ceiling structure, and carefully dropped himself on his feet. “The fuck gives?” he asked, brushing dust off himself.

“Sorry, Ghoulie, but this is huge. The Director’s dead,” Chimp told him. “One of his own killed him!”

D wheeled out. “What did you just say?”

“It was all over Bat City TV! The Director just ate a fuckin’ laser.”

“Does this executioner have a name?” D was already rushing back to his soundboard, urging Chimp to follow.

“Party Poison! And Kobra Kid and Show Pony are his accomplices,” Chimp told him, standing in the doorway of the studio.

D nodded and stopped the song that was playing immediately so he could turn the mic back on. “Sorry for the interruption, motorbabies, but we’ve got a hot and fresh dish to serve to you! If you haven’t heard already, the Director of Battery City was just taken out by a traitor to BLind. He goes by the name of Party Poison, so if you happen to cross paths with this newborn renegade, be sure to send him your thanks. Here is the traffic.”

  
  


“Ghoul, I think we need to discuss a few things,” D prompted him while he was still waking up.

Ghoul stretched out on his messy pile of blankets and rubbed an eye. “D’we need to do it right the fuck now?”

“Well, I’m playing a block of Zeppelin and I’ve got about eleven minutes left, so yes. Now.”

Ghoul groaned and sat up. “What’s the matter? Am I in trouble?”

“No, kiddo.” D ruffled his messy hair. “But it’s getting wild out there with the Dracs really crackin’ down on the ‘Joys. Chimp’s gonna need some help out there, and I appreciate you stickin’ around to help me.”

Ghoul let out a heavy sigh. “But what if something happens while I’m not here? What if I get tracked or somethin’, or...or I get caught and--”

“Listen.” There was something to D’s expression, then, something between somber and soft. “I think it’s best you get out there more often and really get a feel of this place. It would almost be like the van days, I’m sure. But this place has been your home for years now. It’s time you really get to know her better. Just in case something happens.”

Ghoul scowled at that implication, but he didn’t want to argue with D. He was, unfortunately, right. One day, he could be gone. “Witch,  _ fine _ . Way to be a Doctor Downer.” He chuckled at his own joke.

D laughed as well. “Y’know I’m just lookin’ out for you. Besides, Chimp’s been talkin’ to another zonerunner out there that might come in handy here.”

“Aw, thinkin’ of replacing me?” Ghoul smirked and nudged D’s shoulder. “Okay. I’ll work on it, promise.”

  
  


The promise was easier said than done. Or, it was easier said until Chimp found him an abandoned motorbike to fix, which was a lot more convenient to use than the van. But even then, all he ever found was battlegrounds or the skeletons of old buildings. The mailboxes he passed by were probably his favorite, though he never understood why they always had candles and sad messages spray painted on them. He didn’t mess with them at all, since he only assumed they were a part of some ritual. There were more important things to focus on, anyway, like finding food for Dr. D, but he got by where he could with scavenging.

Chimp took Ghoul to one of her parties for some stress relief. A lot of zonerunners needed to blow off some steam, and it was a good opportunity for Ghoul to meet a few new people. It had been a while since he actually talked to new people, but he didn’t lose his touch. He ended up hearing a lot of stories, drunken minds regaling passionate tales about past battles and runners that were with the Witch now. He ended up with four beaded bracelets on his wrist in the process, which he didn’t really understand yet, but he thought they were pretty.

Ghoul was also progressively getting drunk, and he realized quickly how much he truly was missing out on. When he stepped outside to catch some air, there were two other people just talking casually. One was in polka dot tights and rollerskates, which Ghoul immediately wanted to know more about. He remembered them possibly being the one who was close to Kobra Kid. But the other one, he’d never actually seen him face to face before, but the description matched what he’d been told before.

He was tall with a fucking  _ halo _ of hair and a jacket anyone could recognize. Black with an American flag on the back, and the symbolic spider painted overtop. That had to be Jet Star. Before Ghoul could even catch himself, he was approaching both of them. “Uh, hi.”

Rollerskates (Pony something, right?) smirked when they noticed Ghoul. Jet Star did not. He looked more annoyed. “Can we help you, honey?” Pony asked.

Ghoul bit his lip. “Maybe? I dunno. Am I interrupting something?”

Pony giggled. “No, we’re not talkin’ about anything important. Just looking at the stars.”

Jet shot them a look.

“So you’re a Killjoy?” Ghoul asked quietly.

Jet shrugged. “We’re all Killjoys out here. People who don’t live in the city, guess we all call ourselves Killjoys.”

“Yeah, but you’re a  _ Killjoy _ .”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Pony nudged him. “Don’t act like you’re nothin’. It’s cool to be humble, I get that, but you’re famous.”

“I’ve been makin’ Chimp keep tabs on you.” Ghoul added, and immediately regretted it.

Jet squinted suspiciously at him. “You’ve been stalking me?”

“What? No, no. No. That came out wrong. Just, y’know. All the claps and the way you help people out here. You and the...Toxic Twins or whatever their name is.”

Pony snorted and covered their mouth.

“Venom brothers.” Jet bit back a smile. He wasn’t in the mood to be so amused, and yet.

Ghoul pressed his lips together curiously. “Can I buy you a drink, Jet?”

Jet eyed him up and down. “No.”

“Oh, okay.” Ghoul suddenly felt the need to apologize, but the word never came out. “I didn’t mean, uh, well-- you  _ are _ very handsome, but--”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t.” Jet’s eyes were stern, but his voice was oddly soft. It made Ghoul’s face flush.

He scratched the back of his head, swallowed hard, and nodded. “Okay, cool. Yeah. I think...uh, I’ll go now. Nice meetin’ ya both.” The last thing he saw was Jet’s mouth part like he was gonna respond, but he was already backing away toward the van too quickly. So maybe Ghoul had lost his touch a little bit.

  
  


“Rise and shine, Sad Ghoul.” D was by Ghoul’s nest again. “Chimp just told me about an abandoned office complex with working electricity in Zone 2. Wanna get in on that?”

Ghoul had spent 36 hours in bed already, and the promise of fresh parts seemed to be the only thing that could rouse him. “Yeah...yeah. I’ll see what I can bring back, I guess.”

“You okay? You’ve been catatonic since that party.” D wheeled himself back a few feet to give Ghoul space.

Ghoul shrugged. “Fine. Just, uh, lot to drink, I guess.” It was half a lie, but it didn’t matter much to him anymore. “I’ll be back by-- uh, before the sun goes down. That okay?”

“Shiny. Chimp and her new comrade’ll be around, so you don’t have to worry too much. See you then.”

Ghoul gave D a little salute before getting dressed and heading out. In hindsight, being outside like this actually brightened his mood a lot. Finding a fuse box in such a good state was such a rarity, and he couldn’t wait to pick it apart and take it home. Slipping gloves on, he placed a flashlight in his mouth and got to work unscrewing it so he could get to the wires and start snipping them.

In the middle of his work, though, he heard echoes of voices and tensed up. “Shit,” he muttered to himself, right when he cut the wire to the main lighting. Apparently, it pissed off whoever crashed on  _ him _ , because he heard a voice telling the others to fan out and be on guard. Ghoul panicked silently; he didn’t want to leave anything behind, but his flashlight gave him away too soon and he only nearly dodged a laser.

“Wait! Stop, please, I’m not dangerous,” he called out when the flashlight dropped from his mouth. Two more bright lights shone in his eyes, blinding him enough not to catch the surprisingly powerful and surprisingly electrified sock to the jaw. Ghoul was knocked off his feet, but he tried to roll and crawl away to the hole in the wall. A boot pressed down on his back, and he held his breath.

“How did you find this place?” a high-pitched, but firm voice asked.

Ghoul bit his tongue and stayed silent. It must have been the wrong answer, because a hand grabbed him harshly by the back of his neck, delivering another small shock, and everything went a little fuzzy. His whole body was being moved into a spot of sunlight from a hole in the ceiling, he could feel that, and he was suddenly sitting up. There must have been a chair or something here, stiff and uncomfortable.

Okay. He was a hostage now. As far as he knew from the few blurs of colors in the darkness, these probably weren’t Dracs or anyone from the city, so that was...sort of a plus. His arms were grabbed so that his wrists could be duct taped together. Ghoul took a deep breath. “Not to be annoying, but, uh, is this really all necessary? We coulda talked this out, y’know. I haven’t even seen your faces, so it’s not like I could rat you out to anyone.”

Trying to let his irritation go, he shifted his hips to get more comfortable. “While I’m here, we might as well get to know each other a little bit. So. My name’s Fun Ghoul, I like long walks on the beach and using my hands freely. What about you guys?”

“Where did you find this place?” the same voice asked.

“Damn, no manners in the desert.” Ghoul rolled his eyes.

There was a pause. “You’re from Bat City?” the voice asked in disbelief. “You don’t got their manners either, so it seems.”

Ghoul smirked, and let his expression steep himself in the mystery.

“I’m gonna ask you one more time.” The body that matched the voice got close enough to Ghoul that his colors were more profound. Blue, red, and yellow.

His eyes widened. “Ohhhhh,  _ shit _ . Okay. This is kinda cool. I got snatched by  _ the _ Killjoys, didn’t I?”

The end of a blue blaster pressed gently against his forehead. “It’s about time you answer the question, don’t you think?” a more familiar voice spoke up.

Ghoul’s heart jumped, but not out of fear. “Oh, hi Mr. Star. It...it is Mr., right? I’m sorry I didn’t ask before, the whole pronoun thing is still a little new to me and I wanna be more respectful-- ow!” The blaster tapped him on the top of the head. “Fuck. Okay. I got tipped off about a fuse box that’s still in working condition and I needed the parts.”

Party Poison sucked air through his teeth. “You met this clown before?”

Jet put his blaster back in the holster and let out a very heavy sigh.

“Oh, Witch...Jet!  _ This _ is your stalker?!” Party’s eyes lit up excitedly.

“I’m not a stalker.” Ghoul blew a strand of hair out of his eye. “I’m an information collector.”

Kobra crossed his arms, scowling.

“I-- really! I work for Doctor Death Defying, cross my bones. I’m not a stalker or a creep.” Ghoul’s gaze shifted rapidly between the three of them. “Listen. I’m not really that important, but I got things I need to do. People who are kinda depending on me at the moment, and I don’t mean to break up your little interrogation, but could you just let me go? You can blindfold me and throw me anywhere in the desert, I don’t care. I’ll never come back here, if that’s what you want. But I have a deadline.”

Poison sucked air between his teeth. “Doctor Death Defying, huh? The real deal?”

Ghoul nodded.

“So you can contact him?” Party smirked.

“Yeah.” Ghoul sighed. He knew where this was going. “I can radio him right now. You a fan?”

Party shrugged. “Maybe.”

Ghoul chewed on the inside of his lip. “And if I prove that I’m with Dr. D, you’ll let me go?”

“I  _ guess _ so. You don’t deserve it for crashing our raid, but fair’s fair. So how do we get in contact with the Zones’ most infamous voice on the airwaves?”

“Touch my ear.”

Party blinked. “Come again?”

Ghoul tried to flip his hair back as gracefully as he could without his hands, but he ended up looking like he had a light seizure. “Fuckin’...ugh. Just do it.”

Jet stepped up to save the day and tuck Ghoul’s hair behind his ear before he hurt himself, then raised a brow. “Huh, haven’t seen one of those in a while. It’s old.”

“It’s just an earpiece, dude. It’s nothing spectacular.” Ghoul fought back a shiver at the warm touch.

Party got closer to take a look for himself, then hummed. “Yeah, but this tech is usually saved for BLind elites. They wouldn’t have anything this outdated, though.”

“Great, glad we’ve carbon dated my comm. That means you know how to use it, so could you please just push the button for me?” Ghoul rolled his eyes.

Party stood up and raised his hands. Jet huffed and ended up helping Ghoul out.

“Thank you,” Ghoul whispered before continuing in his regular volume. “Ghoul to D. You there, Doc? Over.” A pause. “Yeah, uh, there’s been an altercation. Got a minute to negotiate my release? I’m being held hostage by some crazy fans of yours. Over.”

Kobra nudged Ghoul’s chair with his foot.

“He agreed. You can pull the earpiece out,” Ghoul said.

Party took it, minding the coiled wire it was attached to that continued on under Ghoul’s shirt. He pressed a hand to Ghoul’s shoulder and leaned on him. “This is Party Poison to Doctor Death Defying, over.”

“Party! It’s about time we talked. I’ve been tryin’ to get an audience, but you’re elusive. So you have Ghoul as your prisoner? Over.”

Party swallowed. It sure sounded as real as the radio, and he looked to Jet. He squared his shoulders. “For the moment, yes. We were under the impression your boy here was sabotaging us, can you confirm or deny this? Over.”

Dr. D laughed. “Ghoul wouldn’t do anything to intentionally put you in any harm or danger. He’s a fan of yours. In fact, so am I. Why don’t you come down for an interview? Over.”

“He’s inviting us to the station,” Party relayed.

Jet looked to Kobra. “D’you think we should go?”

Kobra’s jaw shifted, and he mulled the question over for a minute before finally nodding.

Jet shrugged. “Let’s meet Doctor Death Defying.”

“You got yourself an interview, D--”

“Hey. Only  _ I’m _ allowed to call him that,” Ghoul interrupted.

“Then I’ll see you in an hour. Over and out.” The other line went to static.

Party took a deep breath and placed the piece back in Ghoul’s ear, not an easy feat with his squirming. “So. Are we supposed to bring a peace offering or something with us?”

“Just me.” Ghoul’s eyes shifted as he thought. “A few cans of food might be nice, actually. If you got any to spare.”

Party nodded. “Kobra, do us a solid and update Pony, just to tell them where we ran off to.” He turned back to Ghoul. “You know the way home from here?”

Ghoul nodded, and held very still when he was finally cut loose from the chair. He groaned, lightly rubbing the fresh bruise over his jaw and neck, and stood up to stretch his legs.

Party grabbed his arm. “Okay, Fungus. Let’s be on our way.”

“You know, you’re actually really cute when you get all huffy and annoyed.” Ghoul flipped his hair again. “Could I just grab my stuff before we split?”

“We can get it later,” Jet nudged Ghoul toward the big hole in the wall, and their eyes all needed a moment to adjust. Kobra was the last one out; Ghoul could barely hear his voice, and he decided not to ask questions about why he liked being so quiet. To each their own.

For the time being, Ghoul was pushed into the back corner of the Am, longingly looking at his bike out the window. “So is this place, like, super secret or something?”

“Heard it hadn’t been touched in years. I don’t think anyone’s gonna be sneakin’ around here, unless your tip told anyone else,” Party answered from the driver’s seat. “Alright, direct me where to go.”

  
  


“That’s it, right there. WKIL.” Ghoul nodded in the direction of the shack with the small radio tower they were approaching. When the car finally stopped, he held his breath and waited until they allowed him to hop out. He was the first to approach, of course, pushing aside the door. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the others were following, and exhaled deeply when they were all inside. “D, they didn’t kill me! Come have a look.”

“So, I’m finally graced with the presence of the Fabulous Killjoys themselves.” D rolled himself into the room with a bright smile. “A pleasure to make your acquaintances.”

Party pushed his mask up to his hair, eyes wide. “Oh. Hi.” The surprise was too obvious on his face at first, but he forced himself to relax a little, and shook the host’s hand. “Thank you for having us over.”

“Thank  _ you _ for bringing Ghoul back to me in one piece. I’ve been tryin’ to get him to go out more, but it seems that he’s a little trouble magnet out here.” D glanced over to Ghoul.

“Gotta learn how to survive out here somehow, huh? Besides, I’m the reason you finally got your little meeting.” Ghoul grinned.

“Alright, well. The traffic report should be just about done at any time, so do you want to step into the studio?”

The door opened, and Chimp poked her head out. “Hey, glad you’re not dead, Ghoulie. Pony’s just finishing up with a commercial.”

“...Pony?” Kobra spoke up. “ _ Show _ Pony?”

Chimp nodded. “Yeah, they’ve been a pretty big help to me the last two weeks. Are you friends?”

Party and Jet looked back to Kobra, who looked away at some of the posters on the wall. He shrugged and rocked back on his heels.

Party, Jet, and D went into the studio, and Pony skated out with arms wide open. “Rattlesnake!” they whispered, hugging him tight. “I was so excited when I heard you were coming down.”

“And you didn’t, uh,  _ tell _ us anything?” Kobra raised his brow. Ghoul took interest in this as well; he’d never seen Pony around the station until now.

“Chimp and I had been hangin’ out, and I helped her with news and stuff out in the field. Like a little reporter! I thought it was pretty fun. But I wasn’t allowed to tell ya just yet. Gotta gain trust and all, hopefully you understand?” Pony stuck their bottom lip out apologetically.

Kobra kept frowning. “But it’s  _ me _ , Show.”

“I was gonna tell ya! Swear it.” Pony slid back a little. “I’m sorry, it was the most peaceful way of goin’ about things.”

When Kobra looked to Ghoul, he raised his hands up. “Hey, I didn’t know either.”

Kobra clicked his tongue. “Okay.” Scratching the back of his head, he calmed himself down. “I guess it’s pretty cool that you got an in with WKIL. M’really happy for you, Show, but does that mean you’re not gonna be around us as often?”

Pony gave a small shrug. “All I know is that you’re not losin’ me, Kid. I love you too much for that.” They poked the tip of his nose.

Kobra nodded. “I think I’m gonna go sit in the Am for a bit. Maybe fuck with the radio, it’s been more staticky than usual.”

“Need help?” Ghoul asked. “I’m really really good at fixin’ stuff.”

“I heard that Ghoulie here built the station all by himself,” Pony added. “He’s really good to have in a pinch.”

Kobra side-eyed Ghoul, then slid his aviators back on. “I guess.” He turned to step back outside.

Ghoul followed. “Oh! Uh, you want a soda or anything? We got plenty of flavors, what’s your favorite?”

Kobra slid his hands in his pockets and didn’t answer.

Ghoul bounced anxiously, and circled around to the cooler to grab a grape and a cherry to bring them over to the car. Sliding in the passenger’s side, he let Kobra pick a can (cherry), and he set the grape one down on the floor to fish around his pockets for a screwdriver. “You don’t have to talk to me if it’s more comfortable that way. I get it,” he rambled. “And if you need me to shut up, just lemme know. Silence just freaks me out a little.”

Kobra popped his can open and watched Ghoul at work, taking the cover off the radio to set it gently on the dashboard. He had such a precise and careful way of handling things, Kobra noticed; his hands were kinda mesmerizing. Honestly, Ghoul’s voice just kinda sank into background noise as Kobra tuned out, occasionally sipping at the soda until it was gone and Ghoul was already putting the cover back on. “Hm?” he asked when he finally came back to reality.

“Oh, I was just goin’ off about D’s van. That poor girl’s been through so much, but she’s strong.” Ghoul sighed and sank into the chair, smiling brightly. “Wanna give it a go?”

Kobra shrugged again and turned the radio back on, and there was no static to be heard. “Thanks,” he said, giving a small smile back. “Did you build the van, too?”

Ghoul snorted. “Might as well’ve. I don’t know if she has any original part of her besides the exterior. Maybe it’s about time I find D a new one.”

Kobra set the empty can down in the cup holder. “...If you need help findin’ one...lemme know. I got a few hookups.”

Ghoul perked. “Oh. Thanks, you-- that’s real cool of you to offer.”

“Call it an I.O.U.,” Kobra stared out the windshield.

Before Ghoul could say anything more, the station door slid open again. He decided to step out, leaving the grape soda in there for someone else. “Hey, uh, how was it in there? Was meeting Doctor Death Defying everything you’ve ever hoped for?”

“He’s pretty stellar. Said a lot of good things about you, too.” Party eyed him up and down, and smirked. “Actually, mind helping us out one more time?”

“Yeah, sure!” Ghoul answered almost too quickly, then glanced down. “Yeah.”

“Alright, get in.” Party held the door open for him, his smile growing curiously.

Maybe Ghoul  _ hadn’t _ lost his touch after all.


	5. Ambulance / Burn Bright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick trigger warning: there's implications about child mistreatment here in the beginning!
> 
> thanks to everyone that's been reading along so far <3 here's the last chapter, the girl!

As many births do, it started with screaming. Only this time, it never seemed to end.

This was a first for any Battery City doctor ever; nobody had ever delivered a Drac baby before. Regardless, the baby was physically healthy as far as they could tell, but it was all the talk around the labs for weeks to come after. Everyone wanted to see this little anomaly, wanted to see if it was as feral as the low-rank minions. Of course, it wasn’t all that easy to see in an infant, but the doctors were eager to see progression in the oncoming years.

The Girl wasn’t placed with the other children. She stayed with doctors and therapists under special care, well, perhaps not so much  _ care _ as  _ observation _ . She learned to bite the moment she grew her first tooth. She learned to climb before she could properly crawl, which made the doctors in charge of watching over her lose a lot of sleep.

The Director never came down to visit children. She didn’t much care for them unless they had the potential to become weapons for her, but she had to step in with this one. There was something so special and terrifying about the Girl, something that actually sparked emotion in the Director that she had decided to take on this project herself. Oversee the personal care of this strange and incredible child.

The Girl was not seen as a child to be nurtured by the Director, of course, nor did the Director have the time to be a full-time parent, so the Girl mainly stayed in lab rooms during her first year. Every time they were in the same room, they were both silent and shared glares in each others’ directions. The Girl never lashed out at the Director, but the disdain was more than clear on her face whenever she was around.

By the time she was two, she was already put on medication. To the Director’s dismay, it didn’t work in the slightest. Even when the doses were increased, the Girl would fight against the symptoms until she got physically sick. The Director wasn’t about to give up, only to change the course of action. Perhaps, if she was born from a Drac, she might be able to become a Drac so early on.

Halfway through The Girl’s second year of life, the Director commissioned a smaller-size Drac mask to be made. Smaller, clearly to fit her, but stronger. If the pills wouldn’t work, surely hard programming had to.

  
  
  


Cherri and Chimp tossed on BLind uniforms in the shadows of a parking garage. Two dead bodies laid at their feet. “You remember where the clearance codes are for all the vehicles?” Cherri asked, looking over his stolen badge.

Chimp nodded. “I get the code for a van, you get the twins, we bust outta here lickety-split.” She high-fived him. “We got this, Cola.”

“Good luck.” Cherri nodded to her when they parted ways, heading towards an elevator door with a deep breath. He’d never been around the actual headquarters before, but he was confident enough in his memory of everything Dr. D had told him. This mission was his make-or-break moment into the radio host’s crew, and he couldn’t fuck it up. It was going to be a long walk from the offices over to where the children were kept, but he kept repeating the directions over in his head to keep himself calm.

Finding the children was easier than expected. His heart still broke that he couldn’t bust all of them out of there, but the weight that lifted off of his shoulders when he saw how relieved the twins looked when he said their names, “Vaya and Vamos,” he knew he was still doing some good.

His reason for taking them out of their containment room, if anyone had dared to ask, was simply a bloodwork test. He never spoke to anyone else more than a sentence, and kept moving as quickly as he could. Until he heard screaming. The kids were immediately startled and held onto his hands, but Cherri’s heart urged him to move forward. He needed to see what was happening.

The screaming was coming from behind two locked doors at the end of a hall off to the side. Cherri  _ knew _ he was already on a mission to protect two kids already, but the screaming sounded too much like another one. With a deep breath, he’d waited for someone else to unlock the door, set his own children off to the side for a brief moment so he could sneak in, and he paled at the sight of two orderlies trying to pin down another child. A small one, at that. With a mask on.

Without thinking, he shot the cameras first, then the two grown men subduing the child. He ran to tear the mask off her, and scoop her up in his arms to bring her back out of that wing, to the twins again. “Sorry. We’re getting out of here now.”

Chimp had gotten the van as promised, but she was shocked to see the side door open and  _ three _ kids with him. “Hey--”

“I’m being followed. Just go,” Cherri told her, and closed the door once everyone was in. He tried to calm the crying child against his shoulder as best he could, but she sounded like she was in pain.

“There should be a med pack somewhere by you.” Chimp started the engine and made her way out of the garage. She played a bit with the radio, talking with someone in some control booth about where they were going, some bullshit about repairing a camera in Zone 2, and the second they were out of the headquarters property, she sped off.

Cherri searched around the med kit, cracking open an ice pack to rest gently against her head. “Do you think you can make it to the Nest without me? I’m not sure what to do with this one.”

“Why did you take her?” Chimp asked as she kept glancing in her rearviews.

“She had a mask on,” he said, and that seemed to be the end of that conversation as the Girl finally started to quiet down out of exhaustion.

  
  
  


Cherri pushed the makeshift door aside and hurried in, still catching his breath once he was safe inside. When both hands were free, he clutched onto the child, checking her pulse and breathing without setting her down just yet. WIth his poking and prodding, gentle as he tried to be, he still woke her and had her start out with a whine that only crescendoed into a cry.

Ghoul hurried out to the front room. “What the f-- Cherri?” He glanced back at the studio door for a moment. “D’s in the middle of a broadcast, dude.”

“I can’t help it!” Cherri hissed in a panic. “Ghoul, I dunno what to do. Please help.”

It didn’t even register to Ghoul what Cherri was even holding until he said that, and he paled. “Oh. Cherri?” He approached him,  _ them, _ and reached out to brush the child’s hair out of her face. “I thought you left to save two kids. And why did you bring it back here?” He panicked when the crying grew louder, and pressed himself carefully against her back so she was secure between the two of them.

“Ghoul, what are you doing?” Cherri asked.

“I don’t fuckin’ know, I’ve never been around a kid before and group hugs always make me feel better when I’m upset, so--” Ghoul shrugged. “Can we take her back outside?”

Cherri huffed. “Just for a minute. Here.” He passed her off to Ghoul.

“Wait!” Ghoul clung tight to her so he wouldn’t drop her, but his hands started shaking a little. “Asshole, warn me when you do that!”

“I’m just getting her some water.” Cherri stepped back toward their food stocks.

Ghoul groaned quietly, stepping back outside while still keeping her in the shade. “Hey, uh, sorry kiddo. It’s okay-- please...please don’t be sad. Hey there.” Ghoul shifted his hands under her arms and dangled her in front of him to get a better look at her. “Hi there!"

Her legs swung, which distracted her enough to quiet down, and her hands balled up into fists in an attempt to dry her face. The more she swung her legs, the more amused she seemed.

Ghoul smiled in relief. “There you go. You’re okay.”

She only seemed amused for a minute before her shoulders started to ache, and she whined again, reaching out to him.

Ghoul blinked, and set her to sit on his hip. “Okay. See? It’s not all that bad.”

When Cherri finally came back out, he cracked open the bottle of water and smiled timidly. “Good, she’s not crying anymore. You sure you’ve never been around kids before?”

Ghoul shook his head. “Nah, Cherrs. D’you want her back?”

“No, you can hold onto her.” Cherri carefully held the bottle for her to drink from, trying his hardest not to spill too much.

Ghoul stared pointedly at Cherri. “You  _ sure _ you don’t wanna take her back?” he whispered. He was too scared to shove her back into his arms.

Cherri nodded with a tight-lipped smile. “I’m good, Ghoul. Actually...I was hoping we could talk about a few things--”

“What in the seven levels of Hell is goin’ on out here?” Dr. D wheeled himself up to the front door. “Ghoul.”

“It was him.” Ghoul pointed to Cherri.

Dr. D slid his sunglasses off and folded them up slowly. “Cherri, what have you brought back to us? Or, perhaps...should I ask  _ who _ ?”

Cherri looked down at his boots. “Okay, so Chimp and I went in to get those twins out of the system...and we did find ‘em. They’re safe, Chimp’s bringing them back to the Nest. But then we saw her, D.  _ With a mask. _ She was fighting against it, you shoulda heard her. They fucking tried to mask a  _ baby _ , we couldn’t let her stay there.”

“Yeah.” Ghoul kept staring at Cherri. “I’m afraid of what you’re gonna imply next.”

Cherri stuttered a moment. “D, would you keep her at the station?” He knew the answer already, but he was only asking for Ghoul’s sake.

Dr. D sighed heavily. “The station isn’t--”

“Fuck.” Ghoul exhaled hard. “I can’t tell the guys. They’re not ready for a kid. We’ve got enormous fuckin’ targets on our backs, are you kidding me? We’re the worst people to take a kid in. What about Chimp?”

“Yeah, hand a toddler over to the rave queen.” Cherri folded his arms over his chest.

Ghoul’s eyes widened in panic. “You said that you took the other two that you rescued to the Nest, why can’t she just go there?”

“Because those kids already have parents, Ghoul. It’s too dangerous there for an orphan,” Cherri answered, shrugging.

Silence fell over the four of them, which made Ghoul check on the Girl, who had seemed to doze off on his chest. Dr. D looked back at him, brows furrowed in hesitation. “Think about it this way, Fun.” Ghoul knew this was serious now, making him groan. “Yeah, you got wanted posters. But your place is probably one of the most secure areas in the Zones. They’d never find her if she was with you.”

“D, c’mon,” Ghoul whispered. “You can’t just dump her on us.”

Dr. D rolled back a few feet, letting the door fall between them. “Talk it over with your Joys. I gotta finish my broadcast.”

Ghoul pushed his hair back with his free hand, sighing. Fuck, Party was gonna be  _ furious. _ When he turned back to Cherri, he glared at him.

Cherri swallowed, staring back in fear. “What else am I supposed to do?”

Ghoul huffed, hugging the Girl a little tighter. “Whatever. Just do me a favor and get me a fuckin’ radio.” It was probably better to get this overwith. With a quiet sigh, he turned back to her and tried to smile. “Sorry, am I bein’ too loud?”

She tucked her face against his shoulder with a little whine, clutching at his vest.

When Cherri returned with the radio, Ghoul nodded to him and sat down on the ground, his back up against the wall. He set her more comfortably in his lap and shrugged the vest off to wrap around her, even though they were in the shade already. She didn’t seem to mind, anyway. He stared at the radio, fiddling with the frequency to procrastinate another minute until he finally called in. “...Fun Ghoul to Party. Over.”

“Party here, Ghoul. What can I do you for? Over.” The answer was almost immediate.

Ghoul straightened his back. “We got a code pink. The station. Over.”

  
  
  


“Over and out, sugar.” Party placed the radio down, and leaned against the diner counter. “Who wants to take a trip to D’s?”

“Code pink’s the emergency meeting one, right?” Jet asked, and Party answered with a nod. Jet frowned in worry and grabbed his jacket off a table. “Kid. C’mon.”

Kobra tossed his issue of Shiny on the table with a quiet sigh. “Fine, if I must.”

Party ruffled his hair on the way out the door, and slid wearily into the driver’s seat.

Jet sat passenger’s side this time, keeping his gaze forward. He didn’t want to stress Party out any more by watching him.

Kobra, on the other hand, leaned his chin on Party’s shoulder from behind. “What d’you think the code pink’s about, anyway?”

Party started the Am up and sped off. “No idea. Maybe someone’s injured...no, then he probably woulda called just for Jet. Yeah, I can’t...really think of what  _ Ghoul _ would call the code for. He never has before.”

Kobra gripped Party’s seat a little tighter just to stay balanced. “I’m sure it’s not gonna be as bad as we think. Maybe he just, like, has some really good news for us and forgot how to use the code properly. Sounds like something he’d do.”

“It’s gonna be fine, Party,” Jet added. “The station’s safe.”

Party hummed and focused more on driving, though he did appreciate both their inputs on the matter. Still, it was just easy to stare at the road until the station was in sight. He parked and was the first one out of the car.

“You sure you wanna go rushing in?” Jet asked as he hopped out, and hurried to follow him when he didn’t answer. “Party.”

“I need to know what this was all about. If Ghoul’s not okay, if-- if D’s not okay, or Pony, then we gotta hurry.” Party pushed the door aside. “Ghoul? What’s going on?”

“Shh, Party! Shut the fuck up!” Ghoul was in the far corner of the room, leaned back against the sofa, aggressively pressing his finger to his lips, then sighed and dropped it to the strange bump resting on his chest. “Hey, baby.”

Kid and Jet filed in at Party’s sides. Kobra tilted his head to the side. “Uh, whatcha got there, Fun?”

“I was hopin’ I could explain it better, but then she just kinda fell asleep on me, and it felt really mean to try and keep her awake.” Ghoul shrugged apologetically. He sat up and set the toddler in his lap, having wrapped her up with his vest so that only her face was exposed.

“That’s a kid,” Jet pointed out.

“No,  _ I’m  _ the kid.” Kobra grinned. Party smacked him upside the head.

“Uh, Cherri told me she may or may not have come from BLi HQ and he took her out of there because he saw her with a Drac mask on, and obviously that shit’s the farthest thing from okay, but they don’t really have the resources to take care of her here. Besides, D’s afraid she might fuck up broadcasting.” Ghoul rubbed her back softly when she groaned.

Party blinked. “Ghoul, what are you implying?”

“Surprise!” Ghoul’s voice was weak and anxious. “We’re dads!”

Kobra shook his head in shock. “Uh, where the fuck were we in this decision?”

“Hey, I didn’t really get an opinion in this either, Cherri just...handed her over to me and said good luck.” Ghoul sighed. “What should we do?”

“Lemme see her.” Jet stepped up and lifted the sleeping girl up, waking her in the process. She grumpily rubbed an eye with her fist and began to sob. The vest fell loose around her frame. The more Jet looked her over, the more something felt strangely familiar to him. Something about her felt like home. Home between Bat City and the Killjoys. “Party, Kid, if you don’t wanna take care of her...I will.”

“Come again?” Party’s eyes widened.

Jet adjusted the vest around her, and let her rest her head on his shoulder. “You heard me. I get that springing a baby on someone is super irresponsible and you really don’t have any obligation to raise her. She’s not--” He stumbled over his words for a second. “She’s not  _ ours _ . But nobody else out there’s gonna take her except the Dracs. She’ll either die in the Zones, or become something worse in the city.”

“What...what about us?” Ghoul asked, hurt deep in his voice.

“Reckon I got enough carbons for a car at the crash track. I’ll take that and set up...somewhere.” The Girl continued to whine, though she didn’t get any louder.

The other three looked around at each other nervously.

“This is a lot.” Party pushed his hair back.

“I’d go with you,” Ghoul offered.

“What?!” Kid grabbed Ghoul’s sleeve.

“Yeah. She’s growin’ on me.” Ghoul closed the distance between himself and Jet and stroked her hair.

“No. No, we’re not splitting the crew!” Party hissed, and pressed his face into his hands. “What the fuck. We can’t do this.”

The Girl clutched at the vest and wriggled a bit in Jet’s arms. When she lifted her head, Ghoul backed up a step. She did her best to turn her head and look at the strangers around her, and grew more nervous, which only made her more vocal.

Jet bounced her softly. “It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay,” he murmured, struggling to think. After a few seconds, his eyes widened. “Ghoul. Gimme your stash.”

Ghoul was about to protest on instinct, but he shut his mouth and sighed. “Should be in the big pocket on the left.” He pointed to his vest.

Jet slowly set her down on her feet to see if she wanted to stand, and once she kept herself steady, he sat down and pulled the vest off so he could pull out a plastic bag full of tiny, colorful bears. He fished out a red one and held it in front of her.

Her whining calmed down as her attention was grabbed by this very strange new thing. Plucking it from Jet’s hand, she just stared at it, squishing it between her fingers.   
  
Jet plucked out a yellow one for himself and ate it, smiling at her. “Try it.”

The Girl ate the gummy bear and thought about it as she chewed, and grinned. “Good!”

Jet’s eyes widened. “Oh, you know some words! That’s really good.” His smile grew to a full grin as he handed her another one.

Party watched them interact, and turned away. “Fuck--” he grunted, pushing his hair back. “You know she’s gonna get upset and needy and-- this is huge. This is a whole new human soul. That we’re  _ stealing _ from BLind.”

She turned to Party when he spoke, her smile vanishing instantaneously.

“We can’t give her back to them,” Ghoul whispered. “Look at her.”

Party turned back to Kobra. “What d’you think, Kid?”

Kobra shrugged. “Seems like we don’t really have much of a choice here, do we?”

“I know that, but I wanna know your opinion anyway.” Party sighed. “What do you think about it all?”

Kobra sighed and spent an extra minute mulling it over. “I-- I’m just scared that we have to change drastically to accommodate her. We’re-- we’re still sort of kids ourselves, y’know?”

Ghoul lowered his head. “Yeah. But I do think we can do it. If we can fight Better Living, then we can keep her away from them, too. And that’s what this is mainly about, isn’t it?”   
  
Jet picked her up again and hugged her securely. “We’re also gonna be raising her, Ghoul. Both are equally as important.”

“Exactly,” Kobra agreed nervously.

Party tilted his head back with a huff and tapped his heel against the floor. “Okay. Okay...just-- okay. We’re dads.” He let the words sink in as he looked back to her, safe in Jet’s arms. “We’re dads. Shit.”

“Dads,” she repeated, and buried her face in Jet’s shoulder.

Jet stroked her back. “Hey, sweetheart. D’you have a name?” he asked her softly, pulling away so he could see her face again. “I’m Jet Star. Who are you?”

She only shook her head.

“No name?” Jet sighed. “That’s okay, we’ll figure that out.”

“Jet.” Party shoved his hands in his pockets. “Before you get super attached to her, we should at  _ least _ consider looking for a place that might be better equipped to take care of her, right?”

Jet shot a hard look at Party. “No.”

“Damn, Jet, I didn’t know that you were such an eager beaver to raise kids,” Ghoul thought aloud.

“What’s a beaver?” Kobra asked.

Ghoul waved a nonchalant hand at him. “Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

Jet took a deep breath. “Alright. I’m dead serious on this. Either you’re with me, or I’m leaving with her.” He couldn’t explain the reason why; not when he wasn’t completely sure if his suspicions were true. Nor did he want anyone knowing about his time with Mad Gear.

Nobody spoke up.

Jet shrugged. “Alright, I’m gonna go see if I can borrow the van keys from Cherri.” He turned and carried the Girl over to Cherri’s door.

“Wait, Jet.” Kobra reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “Where ya gonna take her?”

“The Nest, for now. Until I figure out something better.” Jet shifted her slightly to keep her from falling.

“Don’t,” Kobra begged him softly. “Don’t leave.”

“Let’s all get in the car,” Party spoke up, sighing. “All of us.”

Jet looked at the Girl again. “You’re gonna be just fine,” he whispered, and carried her out of the station to the Trans Am. He slid into the backseat with her, still hugging her close while Ghoul sat next to him, and Party and Kobra took their places in the front.

“Jet, we’re gonna have a talk when we get back. Just you n’me.” Party revved the engine and took off down the long road.

Ghoul reached over and stroked the Girl’s back again. “You okay, Jet?”

Jet sighed and stared out the window. “Remains to be seen, I guess. Thanks, though.”

  
  
  


The Girl sat beside Ghoul at the table she could barely see above, but she could at least see Kobra on the other side timidly smiling at her. With Party and Jet in what sounded like a pretty heated argument in the kitchen and Kobra’s nervous silence, she was also motivated to try and hide herself under the table. And  _ that _ made Ghoul squirm a little with mild panic.

Kobra sighed and got up again, rummaging through Party’s things until he found a few loose sheets of paper and his markers. He set them down quietly on the table, then bent down to take a look at her. “Wanna come up?” he asked.

“Hey, s’okay,” Ghoul added, reaching for her hand. “I know yelling is scary, but you’re okay.” When she didn’t come back up, Ghoul looked back to Kobra.

Kobra shrugged and pulled the art supplied down to the floor and sat down at her level.

The Girl blinked and backed up until her back touched the wall, but the curiosity of all the colors caught her interest soon enough and she inched closer again. When Ghoul joined Kobra on the floor, she felt a little safer, and picked up a purple marker.

“Um...” Kobra picked up the green one and uncapped it, and drew a happy face in the corner of the top sheet of paper. “See? It makes colors.” He didn’t even know if she could see colors yet, but it didn’t hurt to try.

She pulled the cap off her marker with a gasp of awe, and brought the wrong end down onto the paper at first. But after taking another look at Kobra’s she squealed at all the lines she was making.

“Is that a good sound?” Kobra whispered. Ghoul shrugged.

She drew all over the paper until there wasn’t an inch of white space left, and grinned at her work. “More?” she asked.

Ghoul and Kobra both stared at her for a few seconds. “Yeah, girl. Here.” Kobra set the finished paper to the side where she could still see it, and laid out the rest of the paper for her.   
  
She sat down and went into her own headspace for a few minutes, tuning out the shouting in the distance. By the time she’d colored in all the paper, she was left with a satisfied smile. “Look!”

“These are great.” Ghoul picked up one of her masterpieces. “We’re gonna keep these on the table for now, okay?” He kept his eyes on her as he took all the papers just so they wouldn’t be on the floor anymore. “Time to stand up now.”

Kobra picked the markers up and made sure the caps were all in the right places, and set everything on the table while Ghoul set the Girl back on his hip. “Hey, you don’t know our names yet, do you? I’m Kobra.”

The Girl pressed her fist into her mouth as she watched him.

“Ko-bra,” he repeated a little slower, pointing at himself.   
  
She smiled blankly at him. “Boba.”

Kobra was quiet for a second, then shrugged. “I can take Boba. Thanks, Girl.”

“Ooh! Can you say...Ghoul?” Ghoul asked with a grin.

She grinned back, and shook her head. “No.”

“No?” Ghoul laughed quietly. “Why not? It’s just one sound.  _ Ghoul.” _

“No!” Clearly, she was taking amusement in this.

“Oh, fine. What about Fun? A little simpler, right?” Ghoul asked, bouncing her lightly. “Can you say Fun?”

She tilted her head slightly, staring up at him. “Fuck.”

Kobra immediately fell into a fit of laughter, as did Ghoul, but he had to clutch to the Girl so he wouldn’t drop her. “Witch, that’s priceless!” Kobra cackled as he wiped a tear off his eye.

Party and Jet returned to the main area just to see what was going on, what had interrupted their argument, and they just stared and Kobra and Ghoul and the Girl smiling between them.

“Everything okay out here?” Jet asked.

The Girl wiggled enough in Ghoul’s hold to signal him that she wanted to be let down, and she ran over to hug his leg.

“Fuckin’-- you shoulda heard her.” Kobra took a deep breath to calm himself. “Okay. We, we were trying to teach her our names, right? And she didn’t wanna say Ghoul, so he tried to get her to say Fun.”

Party stared down at the Girl and crossed his arms. “Yeah, I think I get what you’re saying.” His voice was a little shot from shouting.

When the Girl stared back up at Party, she reached out for his hand.

Once Ghouls’ lungs calmed, he sighed and pushed his hair back. “So, uh, everything okay back there?” he asked.

Party’s jaw shifted as he thought, and leaned forward to hold her hand. “Yeah. Everything’s good...she’s staying.” 

Jet’s eyes widened like he wasn’t expecting that answer. Ghoul grinned, and Kobra looked pleasantly surprised.

  
  
  


Raising a kid wasn’t easy, even if they did get her after she had the very basic grasp of self-reliance. She could eat on her own, words started coming easier to her, which helped with communication, but one person always had to stay behind at the diner to watch over her. At least for the first few years. She started to ask to go out with them, at least to scavenge and trade when she could speak full sentences, and her energy really started to shine through.

Party ended up being the most anxious  _ for _ her, because he knew that they were bound to run into Dracs, or worse. Especially when they realized just who she was; it caught BLi’s attention immediately. Nevertheless, they kept her safe at any and all costs.

Despite the hardships the Four had to face to raise her, they accepted her easily as a Fabulous Killjoy. She learned how to help patch up wounds with Jet, she helped Ghoul build smaller-scale bombs (despite Party’s and Jet’s wishes), she learned hand-to-hand combat from Kobra, and she listened to Party talk about the Zones and planning missions. She was a perfect fit, their poster kid for the revolution.

On the seventh anniversary of the day they took her in, they had taken her out and got a good deal on a boombox for her out in Zone 3. She beamed at it with all the excitement she could muster.   
  
“Party, it’s the best thing ever!” She leaped up and hugged his shoulders. “Thank you so much!”

Party grinned and held her tight. “It’s from all of us, Girlie.”

The other three received hugs from her, Ghoul being the last. He held her extra tight, especially when he looked over her shoulder and saw a dust cloud in the distance, getting bigger. “Mom and Dad are visitin’.”

She turned her head with a gasp, and scowled. “But it’s my  _ birthday, _ ” she said. “That’s not fair.”

“You know they never play fair. Go take cover,” Jet told her softly. “We got this.”

The Girl huffed and stood there as the Four continued forward to meet the Dracs and Korse. She didn’t take cover yet, gripping her new present by the handle as she watched Korse stare them down.

“Today’s the day you hand what belongs to us back over, Party Poison,” Korse demanded, already pointing his blaster in Party’s direction.

“I have no idea what you mean.” Party narrowed his eyes with a frown. “You don’t own shit here, Korse. This is  _ our _ desert. It’s  _ hers _ .”

Korse smirked. “That’s priceless, coming from you, Ex-Crow.” But before anything else could be said, his head whipped back, and he pressed his hand over his nose. There was blood suddenly dripping from it, and a red-splattered rock on the ground.

“You heard him!” she shouted, taking just one step forward. “This is MY desert now, and you’re not welcome!”

The Dracs drew their blasters, fingers on the triggers. Korse sniffed and shook his head. “Looks like we’re going to have to teach that thing manners.”

“She’s not a thing.” Jet tensed up. “And she’s never going with you.”

Kobra grabbed the handle of his blaster, waiting.

“What if I am a thing?” she barked, “What if I’m the most dangerous thing that you’ve ever had to face?” She picked up another rock, then hurled it at one of the Dracs. “Be afraid of what I am!”

“Take cover,” Jet told her again, and they drew their blasters.

The Girl finally listened this time, turning her boombox on before she carried it behind a boulder. She caught a glimpse of Jet staying in close proximity to her, making sure none of the Dracs got close to her. The firefight only lasted a few minutes, as they usually did, with only Korse and the Four remaining.

She peeked out from the side to see Jet and Ghoul on the other side of the rock. Party and Kobra had their hands raised, one blaster each pointed at their chests as Korse stood between them. She huffed and took a step forward, but Jet pressed a hand to her shoulder and shook his head.   
  
“Hand the asset over,” Korse demanded. “I will not hesitate.”

Party eyed Ghoul through his mask, and gave a tiny nod.

Ghoul smirked, and with a light twitch of his fingers, Korse’s car burst into sand and fire. “Have fun bein’ stuck out here, bird-brain.” He turned to grab the Girl’s boombox while Jet picked her up, and the four booked it back to the Am while he was distracted.

“Eat shit, bird-brain!” she shouted back over Jet’s shoulder, and laughed. When she was safe back in the car, she thrust her hands up. “Let’s blast it!”

Kobra turned the car radio on for her as they left Korse in the dust.

She felt warm and wild with the wind on her face, and the four best people in the world by her side. She felt unstoppable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: code pink in american hospitals is the code for child/baby abduction, i kinda thought it was fitting lol


End file.
